“TMI” emerged a few years ago as the standard abbreviation to use when social situations got a little too awkward. The letters stood for “too much information,” and if you were with people who knew what it meant – it became extremely advantageous.
The brilliance was that you could just throw the letters “TMI” out there whenever someone divulged too much of their personal life in public. The awkward situation would then be acknowledged by everyone, and the atmosphere would lighten up considerably. This past week I’ve been thinking “TMI” over and over again, but not within the awkward social spectrum. I experienced the last finals week of my college career last semester, and it felt like I received too much information.
Knowledge is a funky thing. The more you get – the more you need. When you think you’ve found more – you actually find you don’t have much to begin with in the first place. When you need it, you don’t have enough of it. When you actually feel like you have enough, you don’t need it.
If you don’t believe me, just come to college.
Information abounds at college. The library has an infinite amount of books, magazines, online articles, and reference material where knowledge excitedly runs wild. Professors interact with you daily throughout the week with degrees and life experience that should humble any freshman. Classes consume your schedule with assignments, projects, tests, quizzes, questions, answers, data, numbers, graphs, labs, charts, statistics… It seems like an endless cycle.
And then finals week rolls around.
An entire semester of “all the above” is boiled down to one solitary test (or project – depending on which class you have). There is too much information to work with in just one test or project. Professors try to make it work, and they do the best they can. But no professor would sincerely boast that they can comprehensively boil the entire semester into one final.
So what’s our response to a finals week with too much information?
We are…
1) Responsible to work hard – because our God calls us to do that (Col.3:23).
2) To be thankful that our God embodies ALL wisdom and knowledge (Job 21:22).
3) Trusting that God will give us wisdom as we need it (James 1:5).