Chasing Dreams: A College Student's Pursuit of Destiny
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About this ebook
Our journey through life is like traveling by train. We live life station-to-station, trying to pick the right train to board.
While traveling the railways of life, Matthew Chance learned to navigate his way through some gracious guidance and some bad mistakes. Once a devout, humble, discerning youth, he turned to all forms of prodigality in teenage rebellion. As he awakened to his senses, he was about to graduate high school. By the grace of God and a family whose hope for him never faded, he now attends Baylor University.
These revelations have released him to see Philippians 4:13 become a reality: we can truly do all things through Christ who gives us strength. His life has been radically transformed by the concepts he learned through the revelations in this book.
Matthew Chance
Matthew Chance attends Baylor University in Waco, Texas as a junior, studying film and digital media and entrepreneurship. His passion is dreams, and any chance he gets to see one become a reality is awesome.
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Book preview
Chasing Dreams - Matthew Chance
Contents
FROM THE HEART
(MY TESTIMONY)
PART I:
LIFE
WHO ARE WE, REALLY?
THE POWER OF CHOICE
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
PART II:
GOT FAITH?
HEARING
DISTRACTIONS
BELIEVING
OBEYING
DENYING YOURSELF
THE SCIENCE OF MEMORY
PART III:
ACT AS IF
WHY LOVE?
BEING SPIRIT-LED
GETTING CLEAN AND STAYING CLEAN
THE GOLDEN RULE
AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
DO YOU TRUST ME?
DEDICATED, NOT AMBITIOUS
THE PARABLE
OF THE SOWER
WHERE WILL THIS BOOK BRING YOU?
THE THREE STEPS TO SUCCEED
SELECTED POETRY AND SONGS FROM MY JOURNEY IN FAITH
THE SNOW GLOBE
THE LESSON OF CHANGE
EMBARK
CONFUSION
JUST TO KEEP THE DOVE
A REFLECTION OF A REFLECTION
BEAUTY
EXPECTATIONS
DESTINY OVER DESIRE
PURPOSE
NO NAME
WOULD THINGS BE DIFFERENT
THE CANDLE IN THE CAVE
UNTITLED CONFESSION
IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER…
SLOWLY LET GO
‘What an exciting book this is. Reading and reflecting upon its content will lead anybody through the transitions of life and into success. Matthew Chance has such a reflective personality as to take any life experience, good or bad, and turn it into spiritual nourishment and wisdom beyond his years. In my 15 years of ministry, I have never come across a first person resource on making life changes such as this one. While the Lord was changing Matthew’s life, he was recording in detail the process of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual transformation involved.’’
Reverend William H. Ramsey
This book is dedicated to the prayers
of those who saw what I still could not.
FROM THE HEART
(MY TESTIMONY)
There is a process by which every young person must undergo to become an adult. Fantastic ideals are replaced with factual information, speculative ideals with rational intentions. This book records that incredible process of my crossover from adolescence into adulthood. I wrote it in three parts: my senior year of high school, my freshman year of college, and my sophomore year of college. Keep this in mind while you read the concepts recorded in this book—I recorded them as they became apparent to me. Perspective changes so much with time and experience, and I was a totally different person when I began writing this than I am now. My faith was not firmly founded; I even thought I was incapable of love. I had fallen so far into darkness that I saw little hope of return. Here is a small part of my story.
My life started at the end of my parents’ marriage. Soon after my birth, my parents split their possessions and went their separate ways. My older brother and I could not be split, so this was the beginning of custody hearings that lasted most of my childhood. We were placed back and forth between parents, as appeal after appeal was made. Nevertheless, the Lord had His way in my life. He made sure that the gospel was administered to me throughout that time of darkness. I was taught all of the Bible stories, attended Christian summer camps, went to vacation Bible schools, was encouraged to memorize Scriptures, and was even taken to revivals where I saw God move in amazing ways. As soon as I could talk, I would go up to strangers and tell them of Jesus. I’ve been told several times of an incident at Denny’s when I was four years old. I confronted a man who was outside smoking and said, That sin will stick to you like glue!
Looking back with an adult perspective, I can’t believe I had that kind of boldness; I don’t even have that now! Never once in my life did I doubt His existence. Never once did I doubt His eminence. Still, there is more to the Christian walk than just belief.
I was always a strong-willed child, pursuing every goal I could imagine to pursue. I was exceptionally bright, and my test scores defined me as an overachiever. If you would have asked that eight-year-old boy what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have told you he was going to be a cowboy for fun, a preacher for free, and an astronaut for money; there were also times I claimed to be the future president. I wanted to do it all, and I really thought I would!
In seventh grade, I was the troop chaplain in my Boy Scout troop. This was my first ministry experience; the sermons the Lord would give me for my troop were amazing in retrospect! I did not realize at the time that the Lord gave me those sermons—my pride and ambition allowed me to believe it was me with His help. Eventually, I wanted to spread those messages at my school. It was junior high, and the things of the world were quickly becoming much more enticing than those of the Kingdom I had so devoutly given my life to. We had a Christian club at the school, it was student led, so I asked to be scheduled to preach there. The day I was preaching the room was filled with classmates. The message I preached was beyond my years. I recently found that sermon, and I could not believe that I knew those things at such an early age. Promising future, right? Hold off that assumption until you hear about high school.
As junior high progressed, I began to desire social acceptance more than academic recognition. A kid just wants to fit in
(whatever that means). I slowly fell victim to the social pressures and met some wild friends. Still, I was able to hang out with wild friends without doing the wild things. They respected my decision to abstain, and we just hung out. I guess I kind of viewed it as being like when Jesus was dining amongst tax collectors. This was the beginning of the enemy’s plan of attack in my life. He got me around people who were going in a different direction; I was then cut off from friends who would support me in reaching for what God had for me. The summer of my eighth-grade year, my extended family fell apart due to conflict. The support system I had was dramatically changed. On top of this, a family member with whom I was really close offered me alcohol. I drank, I puked, but I liked it.
Quite a different story now, huh? Not only was I set up with friends who partied every weekend; I now had a family situation I could manipulate to get my way. It was perfectly easy for me to find an excuse to go hang with these friends, doing things I shouldn’t, and get away with it. No one could tell me no anymore, even though they desperately tried. So at fourteen years old, I stepped out from the covering of authority that was over me and began to make my own decisions. I thought I knew what I was doing—I was headstrong and pretty bright, but I hadn’t a clue what I was in for.
Now one thing you should know about Christianity: If you decide to backslide, you are left with a gaping hole. I had a hunger for God that developed through the early years when I walked with Him. With all that had happened in my life, however, I no longer knew how to let God meet that hunger. This was the beginning of years of unspeakable darkness. I’ll spare you the details of my high school years, but you should know that I searched for something to fill that hunger in every part of hell. I looked to every drug, every material thing, every sensual pleasure, every vanity—yet nothing would suffice. Did I turn back to God? No! I concluded that I simply needed more, and I got as much as I could handle and then some.
When I entered high school, I was ranked ninth in my class. By my senior year, you were not below the 25th%, you were in the 22nd%. My GPA was hardly adequate for the university I am currently attending. By the grace of God, and only His grace, I was able to catch Baylor University’s admission committee’s attention with my high SAT scores and admission essays. I knew that the Lord was beginning a work of restoration in me, but I had quite a road ahead of me.
I spent my senior year partying harder than I ever had before. I totaled my truck, I was robbed blind, and I almost died on several occasions. So many horrible things happened to me, but I took no notice of these warning signs. You see, I had promises over my life that I still believed. Throughout this dark time, the Lord had placed people in my life to encourage and believe in me. Family members, teachers, school counselors, and the prayers of many loved ones were vital to my recovery. With Baylor University on the near horizon, I knew that I was destined to clean up. Naturally, I took this as a sign that I should have as much fun as I could before the Lord reclaimed me as His own. Call it absurd, but that is how I was thinking back then. Little did I know, the reclaiming process is not peaches and cream. It is a battle in which I almost lost it all.
It was a complete miracle that I arrived at Baylor in one piece. God had me there because it is a Christian university. There were so many other reasons, but the main one was that it had the resources I needed to get my life straight. Now the enemy could not keep the resources away from me, so he had to keep me away from the resources. I would believe lie after lie about how inadequate I was and how I would never fit in
at the school. I believed everyone else was too rich, too smart, or even too happy!
Since my roommate from back home couldn’t come, I was given a room to myself. I took life very seriously; I avoided everyone, and I began to pray and supplicate for God to cleanse me. The Lord made sure there were some people in my life to minister to me in that dark time. I had one close friend there whom I could trust, and I told him everything. Just as things were beginning to look up, I got a roommate. This roommate happened to be from home, and happened to know a similar life as I had. In fact, he did everything I had done, but he had the money to back himself up in doing it. This spurred me off on a battle between good and evil that led me down a double-minded path of destruction. Once again I’ll spare you most of the details, but it landed me in the hospital ripping the IV out of my arm asking, What happened?
The university chaplain was there and explained to me how closely I had come to death, and told me that they had been there praying for me. From that point on, Baylor made sure I took advantage of the resources given to me. I went to counseling, stayed in church, and met with the university chaplain weekly. I developed many new and meaningful relationships, something which I had been lacking for quite some time. As I came to my senses, the Holy Spirit guided me in the wisdom I needed to turn my life around. The horrible things I had done before began to feel like just a bad dream. This wisdom was so liberating for me that I decided to record it, and now it is in your hands.
"Behold, the former things are come to pass,
and new things do