Restoring the Paradigm of “Delight-centered Education”

A Christian college should help you develop a specialized training experience consisting of courses and practica built around the love and delights of your heart. If you delight yourself in the Lord and operate in the arena of your heart's desire, God will raise you into leadership and His anointing will flow. Your education will continue while you grow in leadership because you will discover more and more gifts which you must cultivate in order to take the next step in your life. As you cultivate these gifts by studying appropriate courses in conjunction with the rigors of real-life learning, you will acquire multiplied talents. They will be honed through the interaction of life's pressures, the call within you to fulfill your destiny, and the academic instruction you receive as a student.

On the other hand, when students are pushed through a program which was designed to meet the lowest common standard of the masses and which does not take into account the students' special gifts, motivations, and callings, they seldom become successful, fulfilled, anointed leaders. Instead they struggle against the God-given inclinations of their own particular life's destiny.

Each student should solidify the current call of God upon his life and intensely pursue training and experiences that prepare and equip him for the next step (or next several steps) he must take. His call and direction are likely to change as he goes through life. The Apostle Paul first served as a teacher or prophet (Acts 13:1) and later as an apostle (Gal. 1:1). Be prepared for your call to grow and change as you grow and change.

Christian colleges should encourage all students to take courses at the time they have high interest in them. When either the pressures of life or the call of your heart require that you grow in a certain area, you are most apt to integrate the truths of that area. So you should be encouraged to let the stimuli of life and the desires of your heart lead you in your course sequence and selection. This is a key element is delight centered Christian education.

Education Is to Serve the Student

Remember, you are not created to serve the educational system; the educational process is to serve you. Do not become confused about this. You do what releases God's anointed destiny for you.

Delight-centered education asks that you:

1. Begin with a clear vision of what God is developing in your life.
2. Pursue the fulfillment of that vision, beginning to work and gain experience in the areas set before you.
3. Add to this formal training and education that expands your consciousness and understanding of the areas.
4. Be constantly open to ongoing re-direction and/or confirmation, by listening to God's voice through the various ways it is manifest in your life.

This, then, becomes an example of delight-centered education. This is a shift in thinking for many people. If it is for you, stop and think and pray about the ramifications that the paradigm of delight-centered education will have upon you. Let the significance of this adjustment sink deep into your consciousness so it transforms your approach to education.

You generally will not see the whole of your life's destiny until you have lived a good many years. It will be an unfolding drama and revelation. God's lamp lights the path before our feet, not the entire highway for thousands of miles to come. So begin where you are, and let the mastery of one delight after another develop you into a multi-gifted, Spirit-anointed leader in the area(s) to which God is calling you.