PAGE 8 Esther Ahn Kim PAGE 16 7 Reasons to Work Well PAGE 18 What’s Trending PAGE 12 WORD ON THE STREET MAGAZINE is released twice per semester and has been published for 18 years. WOTS Magazine is written, laid out, and printed by college students and college age people. We’re Christians who love Jesus and want to write about God, life and college. [email protected] WOTS is available on the UW-Stout, UW-Superior, and UW-River Falls campuses. In ReadWots.com addition to these locations in the USA, we also print the magazine in Cebu City, Philippines and distribute to various universities on the island. We’re currently expanding to other international locations and just released a version of the magazine in Southeast Asia and we are working on another one for Amsterdam. Visit readwots.com for details on how you can get involved. We hope the magazine is Meet the helpful, challenging, and provocative, while encouraging you to pursue a strong WOTS Staff relationship with Jesus. wordonthestreetmagazine 2 WORD ON THE STREET MAGAZINE 04 LOCAL EVENTS CALENDAR 05 ARE YOU PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY? AN ARTICLE FROM DESIRINGGOD.ORG 07 ONE GIRL’S TRUE STORY COMING TO FAITH IN THE PHILIPPINES 08 ESTHER AHN KIM A SOLDIER FOR CHRIST IN KOREA 09 DEAR LAURA WHY DID GOD MAKE YEARS, MONTHS, AND DAYS? 10 QUARTERLY MUSIC BEAT A PLAYLIST FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BURNING DOG RADIO 11 THEOLOGY DEFINED HEAR THE STORIES COME TO LIFE 15 THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS FAMOUS 1678 CHRISTIAN ALLEGORY 16 7 REASONS TO WORK WELL HOW OUR JOBS MAKE US MORE LIKE JESUS 18 WHAT’S TRENDING HOW MUCH ARE THEY WORTH? 20 UWRF SUMMER COURSES DE-MYS-TI-FIED IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS 23 NICK THE HICK 12 ANOTHER REDNECK RANT FROM YOUR FAVORITE GUY FACING OUR FEAR OF BEING FOUND OUT WORD ON THE STREET MAGAZINE 3 IMPORTANT DATES CALENDAR UWRF FRI 5/4 UWRF LAST DAY OF CLASSES MON 5/7-THU 5/10 UWRF FINAL EXAMS Street Level Student Org & SAT 5/12 UWRF COMMENCEMENT, 9AM/2PM Student Ministry ROBERT P. KNOWLES CENTER, RIVER FALLS 115 W Cascade Ave MON 5/21 UWRF SUMMER SESSION BEGINS River Falls, WI streetlevelminstries.com/riverfalls [email protected] 612.405.9033 Jesus Fellowship of Believers Intentional Christian Community Sunday Service 5pm 115 W Cascade Ave River Falls, WI CITY OF RIVER FALLS SAT 4/28 KINNI RIVER CLEAN UP, 9AM-3PM GLEN PARK, 355 W. PARK ST. RIVER FALLS MON 5/14-FRI 5/18, 4PM-8PM SAT 5/19 8AM-1PM SPRING CLEAN UP FOR RIVER FALLS RESIDENTS CITY PUBLIC WORKS GARAGE, 950 BENSON ST. FRI 7/13-SUN 7/15 RIVER FALLS DAYS • Friday Night Parade • 10K/2M/Kids' Fun Run • Free Children's Activities • Street Dances and Live Music • Various Sports Tournaments • Fireworks 4 WORD ON THE STREET MAGAZINE Miserable Millionaires If you want the secret to true happiness — to a full and satisfied heart — start asking why you have a heart in the first place. Why did God make you? You are not alive simply to enjoy as much pleasure or comfort as you can in seventy or more years. That’s why millionaires commit suicide. No, whether you live seventy years or seventeen, God has filled your life with more potential than the highest-paid Walk through any bookstore in America, and you might think celebrities, the wealthiest businessmen, and the most we have the corner on happiness. successful athletes — if you will trust him. All their movies, their inventions, their highlights, their championships will Cover after cover promises some secret to new or deeper fade and be forgotten, probably even before you die. contentment, each selling tens of thousands of copies. Habits, relationships, food, forgiveness, work, exercise, But if you embrace what God wants you to do while you live minimalism — you can choose from a thousand different here on earth, the stories will be told forever — even if recipes for happiness. Whether people are actually reading you’re overlooked and ignored for a few decades here. And the books or not anymore, all the pages suggest we are you will find the kind of happiness that the happiest people wealthy in happiness. in Hollywood would sell everything to have. But the real secret is that while we’re swimming in money, comfort, and entertainment — and countless books on happiness — we’re still starving for happiness. All the new titles published each year do not prove we’ve figured out what will make us happy. They’re evidence of famine. Thousands of pages of cake pictures piled in front of crowds fainting for lack of food. Starving in Paradise Almost three thousand years ago, the prophet Isaiah Instagrammed a picture of our twenty-first-century spiritual and emotional hunger. He warns anyone who might oppose the Lord, As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking, and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount He Knows How to Make You Happy Zion. (Isaiah 29:8) Your happiness is not about you — not if you want it to last The starving man has to take a nap — or watch Netflix for a for more than a few minutes. Happiness will always hide few hours — just to get any relief. The thirsty woman, in her from us when we shrink our world down to what we want in unconscious moments, imagines herself drowning in gallons the moment, rather than seeing ourselves as part of what of purified water. Pain rips her from paradise, as her organs God is doing around the world and throughout history. are slowly drying out and failing. Have we experimented with the American Dream long enough to see it for what it is? We God says, “[Bring] everyone who is called by my name, whom think we’re living the life, but are we really just waiting for I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Isaiah the alarm clock to go off? American Dream is right, and if we 43:7). If you want to be happy, give your life to the reason want to be happy, we’ll have to wake up. God gave you life: his glory. WORD ON THE STREET MAGAZINE 5 He knit you together in your mother’s womb — every fiber of for someone else — for the glory of your God. And you will every muscle, including your heart (Psalm 139:13). He knew begin to fulfill the purpose for which you were made — to every single one of your days before there was one (Psalm glorify the God who made you — when you are your happiest 139:16). Thousands of years ago, he knew every detail of in him. As John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when your day today. He hears every thought you think — every we are most satisfied in him.” You fulfill the purpose for question, every temptation, every desire. which you were made, find the happiness you couldn’t find anywhere else, and you may just forget yourself in the Don’t you think he might know what will make you happy? If process. so, he has his own book on happiness. You probably won’t find it in the window display at Barnes & Noble, but it has sold more copies than any other in the history of the world. “If you want to be happy, give your life to the reason God gave you life: his glory.” How do you know when you’ve found the happiness for which you were made? Look at the next verse in Psalm 4: “Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you Fractions of Joy alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:6–8) King David asked the same question all those books at Barnes & Noble are asking: “Who will show us some good?” (Psalm You sleep differently. Instead of escaping reality in American 4:6). Who will show us something that will make us happy? dreams, you know the greatest joy is found in the deepest David answers his own question, realities. When your life is about God’s glory and your treasure is in heaven — when you have more joy than the “Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” rest of the world has in their happiest moments — your soul You have put more joy in my heart than they also finds the sweetest and deepest rest. have when their grain and wine abound. (Psalm 4:6–7) More joy. Once you know someone has found happiness that food and alcohol (and sex, sports, shopping, and social media) cannot produce, don’t settle for just food and alcohol anymore. Again David writes, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalms 16:11). Don’t trade fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore for fractions of joy and moments of pleasure. Do you really want to be happy if you hear about that kind of happiness and keep scrolling on to something else? Are You Happy? By Marshall Segal, Staff Writer, desiringGod.org What you will never read in this week’s best-seller on happiness is that you will find happiness when you start living 6 WORD ON THE STREET MAGAZINE True Story grew up thinking that I have to be good to have satisfaction in life.