When you live somewhere for two months, it starts to feel normal. Natural. Like you’ve always lived there. You’ve gone through the weird phases of “I don’t have any friends,” “I don’t know where anything is,” and “The culture here is different.” You’re comfortably settled into a routine...and then all of a sudden you have to leave.

That’s what happens at STP. The two months we spend in Myrtle Beach are an amazing time of learning and growth, but project isn’t designed as an end, but a means of equipping us to go back to campus as students with a heart for sharing the Gospel with others.

The end

Paul Poteat gave the final talk of the summer on “The End” and detailed three ends we should consider as we leave for home: Jesus, love and heaven.

Knowing more of Jesus was the end goal of project and is the end goal of returning to school...and for the rest of our lives.
Loving the Lord and others more is the end of knowing more of Jesus...it should be an overflow
Heaven is the ultimate end of our walk with the Lord. And it’s going to be better than we could imagine.

It was such a sweet ending to a joyful, eye-opening summer to hear what we have to bring back to our homes and campuses, but even more amazing was thinking about heaven. I realized I am very earthly-minded when it actually comes down to my day-to-day life. Heaven isn’t something I dream about. I don’t look forward to it like I should; I find myself thinking that it would be great if God would just wait until I have the chance to do things I dream about, like have my own apartment, get married, travel overseas, find my dream job, or any number of other things.

But when you actually stop to contemplate heaven, it changes everything.

It changes how you view your work. It makes you see the value in giving away your life because this life isn’t all that there is. It makes you long for the final and ultimate restoration of the world. It makes you want to bring others into that future with you. In the end, everything else (even STP) pales in comparison to heaven.

Heaven and home

Thinking about heaven rightly has made me more ready and more excited to go back to campus. I want others at my school to know the security and joy that comes from a relationship with Jesus that will ultimately end in us being brought to live with Him forever.

Going home from project can be hard because something so good is ending, and that doesn’t feel right. But seeing STP as a launching pad to share the joy of the cross and of heaven, not to mention knowing that one day we’ll all be together again forever...well, that makes it all so much better.

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity