One of the six eBooks included in A Bundle of Joy: Six Books on Christian Happiness is entitled The Happy Student. With students returning to various schools and colleges in the next few days and weeks, I thought you may want to read the foreword of the book to see if it might be suitable for you or for someone else in your family or church:
Perhaps you looked at the title of this book, The Happy Student, and thought, “Oh good, a guide to the best parties on campus.” If you did, I’m going to disappoint you. I tried that, and I can tell you that whatever else such a lifestyle produces, it doesn’t produce happy students or student happiness. Quite the reverse. It’s a different and much better kind of happiness that this book is concerned about, a happiness that is substantial, real, and lasting.
Before I started writing this book, I looked back at 30+ years of of studying, pastoring, and now professoring. I thought about my own experience of student life both at High School and then in University and Seminary. I reflected on about 20 years of pastoring students, and 12 years of teaching them in two seminaries. I also reviewed my own children’s educational experiences at homeschool, Christian school, and now community college. All the time I was asking, “What makes for happy students? What made me a happy student? What made my students happy?”
The fruit is this compact book gathered around eight topics.
- HAPPY STUDIES
- HAPPY ORGANIZATION
- HAPPY TIME
- HAPPY HEALTH
- HAPPY TECHNOLOGY
- HAPPY MONEY
- HAPPY RELATIONSHIPS
- HAPPY DECISIONS
Knowing that students are short on time and patience, I’ve tried to keep it as practical as possible and as short as possible. I’ve reduced mere “theory” to a minimum and I’ve limited the word count by using bullet points and lists.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).
A Bundle of Joy: Six Books on Christian Happiness by David Murray ($2.99).