Change: It’s a word known exceptionally well by students here at Dordt, and it can be quite scary. Freshman students arrive on campus, and their whole world changes. Sophomores come back to campus for the first time as non-freshmen, and they immediately notice the change that inevitably ensues when coming back instead of coming to. Juniors change where they live as they graduate to apartment life (and with it, all the extra responsibilities that are amassed). And of course, there are the seniors, whose whole perspective changes as the looming end to a school year ceases to represent the need to find a summer job, but rather morphs into the gargantuan need to find a life.

I am no exception to this rule of change, although my change represents something different than the need to find a job . . . or a wife for that matter. Yes, I have no idea what I will be doing for a living after I graduate. And I have no idea which terribly attractive actress or musician I’m going to marry (right now I’m thinking Zooey Deschanel). But these changes aren’t necessarily scaring me. Maybe that’s because I’m not smart enough to grasp the magnitude of what being a homeless, single man truly entails. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time I wasn’t smart enough to grasp something – today I had to ask for help just to unlock the blade on a radial arm saw. But I like to think it’s something a little different. I like to think that it is the work God has done in my life.

And that’s the change I’m talking about. Last year, I wrote the “what if” column, and I loved it. But I always questioned whether writing articles about crazy “what ifs” (such as “what if the South had won the Civil War” – just so you freshman have an idea of what I’m talking about), was the best use of my talents to further God’s kingdom. I realize that there is most definitely something to be said about using your talents to God’s glory, no matter the manner in which it is done; that not everything has to be directly related to God and our faith. But I just always wondered if I could use my column to speak on slightly more serious things than a theory of what would happen if Martin Luther hadn’t been able to find a nail (although the consequences were quite dire).

So I’ve come to a conclusion; and now that I’m a senior, the conclusions I come to matter! I can’t stop being funny – it’s kind of my thing. It would be like Rocky Balboa deciding to take up ballet, or Elmer Fudd actually killing Bugs Bunny. It’s just weird and unnatural, kind of like Steve Buscemi’s face. But no longer will I hypothesize on random world events that will probably never happen. Instead, I’m going to take this wonderful chance God has given me to write this column, and use it to drop some spiritual knowledge on you . . . on a biweekly basis.

We all mature – well, most of us at least – and begin to find our place in God’s world as we grow up. And part of this maturation process is beginning to figure out what God has for us within His ultimate plan. God has taught me so much, and put a desire in my heart to advance His gospel to my peers (that’s you guys, bee-tee-dubs). So that’s what I’m going to do. Maybe change isn’t so scary after all.

Alex Updike, Columnist