A Life in Snapshots

A Life in Snapshots

I’m a sucker for nostalgia. In fact, I attribute a huge portion of my personality to this character trait. I love looking back on any given day and trying to figure out what I was doing a year ago—where I was, who I was and what I deemed important.

You should try it—when people look at their lives in snapshots, they are always surprised to find that, week by week, day by day, they’ve been growing and changing into who they are today.

The days between Christmas and the New Year bring a unique season to our country. People seem to stop collectively and examine what their lives have consisted of in the past year, two years, five years— and more importantly, they consider whether or not the things they pour their time, energy and passion into really matter.

In other words, it’s a nation-wide nostalgia session. It’s a healthy dose of hindsight—we can look back at our lives and see how much we’ve grown, where we are now and where we want to go next.

Let me show you what I’m talking about when I say a life in snapshots. Bust out your Marty McFly vests y’all, because we’re traveling all the way back to the sepia-stained year of 2009 so I can prove my point.

February 2, 2009

It's a Monday, and I'm wrapping up one of the last dress rehearsals for Les Miserables. At this point of my life, I have a five-year streak of shows going for me. I never had more than two weeks off between any two productions, and as an aspiring actor, that’s the way I liked it. In my mind, this was how my life was meant to be—a never-ending string of shows.

In my sophomore year of high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life; I just had fun and lived from one rehearsal to the next. My closest friends were the guys my age in the youth group—we got ourselves tangled into more mischief than I care to remember, but we had more fun than anyone we knew.

I could have cared less about school. I took Pre-AP classes, skirted my way through the mandatory Spanish classes, and avoided anything that required effort.

As far as leadership went, I had about zero interest in being involved in any. The extent of my leadership experience consisted of co-directing a 15-minute one act— I was a born, albeit articulate, follower.

November 15, 2010

                Like everyone else in the high school graduating class of 2011, I had become acutely aware that a clock ticked in the background—the time bomb named “college”. It terrifies, excites, and frustrates everybody their senior year. For me, decision time had come.

                I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that God had already said no to me pursuing theatre in college.  At this point, however, I turned a deaf ear and stubbornly prepared college audition tapes in spite of what I knew God had told me. 

               

               It would be another five months before I finally accepted God’s plan (*cough* Jeremiah 29:11 *COUGH*). This led to a very bitter season of my life where I didn’t treat the people around me well in any sense of the word.

                School had become an oppressively boring routine. I was one of the guys you would see in classes like “Marine Biology”—because in the back of my head I kept telling myself it didn’t matter what I was enrolled in, because musical theatre programs weren’t going to care what my GPA was.

                At this point, God had planted the seed of leadership in my heart, but it was small. The word that seemed to haunt me as I prepared to leave Union High School was “legacy”—I was constantly plagued with a question: “What legacy are you leaving behind you, and is it a legacy worth following?”

                I never liked the answer to that question.

December 3, 2011

            It’s the Saturday before dead week—and I’m at a party. There are probably 250 people in the house, and I walked around like I know every one of them.

             This marked the end of one of the most impacting semesters of my life—starting college, pledging BYX, and become an extrovert by choice—and when I say extrovert, I mean EXTROVERT. Life had never been so exciting and dynamic.

                My study habits had become drastically different. I knew every good study spot on campus, because I had frequented most of them myself. I had decided on public relations as a major, and was completely stoked for my future in it (STILL AM).

                I had two crystal-clear passions in my life: leadership and people. I feverishly pursued opportunities to be an influencer, leader and example-setter—more than that though, I sought out any opportunity to meet and connect with people. I would drop a textbook instantly for the opportunity to go to Classics with a couple pledge brothers “just because”.

                I had hit the sweet spot—I could feel God moving in every day of my life, and each new day held a new experience.

                I can’t help but love life each day now.

December 19, 2012  

                I’m 20 now. I’m at the precipice of the most exciting decade of my life, and I’m experiencing it with some of the best people I’ve ever known. My roommates are the most unique blend of personalities I could ever imagine, and they are the support group that has pushed me this semester to grow in more ways than one. They are just a few of the great friends that have come into my life that make every day a memorable blessing.

               Between learning a new language, picking up business classes and starting up my second consecutive season of being in charge of rush for my fraternity, I sometimes can't help but laugh when I think that four years ago the most exciting thing in my life was the next show.

                I joke with the people I’m close to often that I feel like I’ve started my 30s more than my 20s. Yet at the same time, I really do feel that way—and it’s a good thing. Maturity is a lifelong journey—but the past year and a half has grown me exponentially. It makes me irrepressibly excited for the future—one year down the road, two, three. The road I’m on is the kind that is filled with so much life and hope I can’t even understand how lucky I am.

Nathan, what are you getting at? 

               

                Look at the snapshots of your own life. I'm willing to bet if you roll the clock back even three years, you'd hardly be able to recognize yourself. But so often we lose sight of this fantastic journey.

                It’s so easy to get lost in the day-to-day, the routines, the checklists, the goals. When we let ourselves get enveloped in all of that, we don’t see how we’re changing over time. Our noses get too close to the grindstone and we get wrapped up in things that aren't  important. So here is what I’m asking you two weeks ahead of time.

                This New Years, take a step back and look at your life. Look back a year, two years. Ask yourself, who are you now? What do you value? What are your priorities? What are your goals? Have they changed since a year ago? Two years ago?

                Then ask yourself this— where do you want to take your life now?

Your future is in good hands—it’s in your hands. So grab it, and go run after something worth chasing so that you have something to remember when you look back on 2013.

See what a little nostalgia can do?

Go celebrate Christmas—enjoy your families, remember the birth of our Savior and bring in the New Years right—but take a few minutes to step away. Look back and reflect—

Because when you look at a life in snapshots, you’ll be surprised how much the picture changes.

Thanks for reading—I wish you all a Merry (Early) Christmas!

Yours,

Nathan Robertson

               

A Frank Discussion on Pride and Confidence

Oh hey there! Long time no blog.

It’s been far too long. I’ve been robbed of the time to blog freely this semester.

                Life, per usual, is an exciting and dynamic blur. Each day develops organically and brings new surprises and developments, and God never ceases to surprise me with new angles of insights.

  

              To fill in the gap from the last three months, here are some highlights—

--Learning Chinese is the most rewarding headache I’ve ever had—one semester down, a lifetime to go!

--Working on a start-up company with friends is setting the stage for a very exciting spring semester.

--Running a blog for OU’s student government keeps me all over campus—from campus-wide “go green” initiatives to state-wide food drives, maintaining the blog keeps me attached to the daily events of OU.

--Raising the newest pledge class of BYX has been an awesome experience, and I’m proud of the tangible growth I’ve seen nearly 70 young men go through.

--My “No-Shave-November” beard actually accomplished “beard” status this year.

--After gaining admittance to the Honors College, I’ve started my first research paper. I don’t know if *anyone* reading can relate to what I’m about to say, but I’m very, very excited for the journey that’s already begun with the paper, including engaging Professor Alexander Holmes in deep academic conversations of ethics.

                It’s hard to give an accurate view of three months in snapshot-style blurbs, so I want to give you something that’s been on my heart lately. I want to talk about pride and confidence: the former of which I struggle with, the latter of which I hope you all seek to foster in yourselves.

Pride is a fickle thing.

I’d like to think that I’m good at regulating my pride—but since I’m hardly unbiased, I’m not making a strong statement.

Something I can state firmly, however, is that an important line between the definitions of “confidence” and “pride” has begun to blur in the past couple decades. While these words are *generally* the same, there are important distinctions that must be made.

Why is this important? Because I believe understanding the difference is a huge step for Christians to take in utilizing their God-given gifts.

Let’s start with pride. I can tell you from experience that it can be a stumbling block in anyone’s life—and it is a block in many lives. Our culture has been churning out movies and TV shows for several generations now that reinforce the concept that we all are the center of our own little universe.

Don’t believe me? DVR a Jersey Shore re-run. Pop in a Disney movie. (Not that I’m hating. Hercules will always be my favorite Disney movie, hands down.)

So why’s it an issue?

Pride isn’t the worst issue we could have in our lives. In fact, pride normally is the byproduct of many good things in our lives— like success, love and meeting our aspirations, amongst other things. Somewhere along the parade of our own accomplishments, however, we’ll encounter a tiny, inaudible little voice in our head that says—

“Well, look at all these things that   I  have done.”

And just like that, a seed is planted in our hearts.

“Look at what  I  have done. Look at the success in my life and how  I  did it, all by myself, without help from anyone.”

And the tirade doesn’t stop there. It continues. Before we know it, we’re subconsciously claiming credit for every good thing that has every happened in our life.

Pride denies the idea that God gives us gifts. Pride claims that we’re all self-made men who develop our own talents. Pride dismisses humility, does not acknowledge meek behavior and disregards the idea of crediting anything to others.

But let me re-emphasize the most important part of that again.

Pride denies the idea that God gives us gifts.

Now let’s talk about why confidence is different.

Where pride says “I know I’m responsible for the gifts in my life,” confidence says “I know I have gifts in my life, and I’m going to use them intentionally.” It’s being bold with the gifts God has given us, and not being afraid to stretch ourselves to see those gifts further realized. Confidence sharpens us, makes us more intentional and spurs us to do big things with our lives.

So why does the difference matter?

My confidence has sky rocketed the past year and a half. After being mentored and groomed by student and faculty leaders, I am beginning to develop a very keen awareness of where my strengths lie and how to use them effectively. I still periodically struggle with pride, and for the longest time I tried to find a balance, swinging between utter narcissism and the absence of any confidence.

But here’s some scripture that got me thinking.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Romans 12:6-8

This is the conclusion I came to after several weeks.

We should be bold, confident and unafraid to pursue excellence in the areas we are gifted. We are not blessed with talents so that we can sit on, hide or belittle them. We need to acknowledge our talents and skills so we can develop them, and use them for God’s glorification. Confidence is good for us!

However, this all must be framed in a bigger picture. We need to be confident in our God-given gifts, but retain the humility to never forget that they’re God-given.

(^^*cough* Take-home point *cough*^^)

So yeah. Be confident, not prideful; bold, not narcissistic; and never forget that we were designed for a purpose.

Hopefully this blog has given my friend's parents from my home church in Tulsa an update on my life (That's right-- my mom has told me which ones of you read this!), and given my college friends a ten minute break from studying. (Trust me-- you need the break.)

Love y’all, Thanks for reading, and T-minus 20 days until CHRISTMAS!

Nathan Robertson

P.S.

For more reading on the importance of investing in your spiritual gifts, read the parable in Matthew 25:14-30    #RealTalk #JesusTalk

 P.P.S. 

Did I mention only 20 days until Christmas? Oh I did? Ok good. Just reminding you.