Make your plans, but be ready to answer a callMartin D. Hughes, Ph.D.Dean of Undergraduate Education

Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing about how the Hunger Games films instruct today’s young people about what it takes to succeed in the 21st-century world. In this concluding column I discuss the importance of making tentative plans, and then being ready to answer a call you hadn’t planned on. Prior to the start of each Hunger Games, the Tributes did not know much about the nature of the contest, or even the arena in which they would compete. Because there were so many unknowns, Tributes like Katniss had to be prepared for anything and everything.

They could, however, make educated guesses about what they might expect. Paying attention to previous contests helped, as did discussing them with mentors. In other words, skills and relationships form the basis of a plan for an unknown and unknowable future.

Still there are things that can be known. For example, Tributes could learn about their competition. Thus Katniss was careful during training to observe each of her opponents. She tried to identify their strengths and weaknesses, their strategies and dispositions. Her plans had to take into account the likely plans of others.

This preparation paid off in the arena. Often Katniss had to make snap decisions about what she was going to do. She couldn’t know in advance whether she’d made the right choice, but not choosing was simply not an option. A failure to act – and act decisively – would surely mean death.

Sometimes Katniss chose an aggressive, risky strategy. Other times she went with a safe, defensive approach, choosing to retreat from a situation to regroup and recharge. But in every case she had to trust in her skills and relationships. She didn’t have the luxury of second-guessing her decisions.

To some extent today’s students must act like Katniss. They, too, must make their plans and then constantly be monitoring and modifying them. Coasting and drifting are not viable options. The entire process must be managed actively all the time.

Windows of opportunity are constantly opening and closing, so you have to be flexible. You can’t be thrown when academic requirements change or programs are eliminated. Internship and study-abroad opportunities emerge and shift. Professors leave and are replaced. Or aren’t. Life happens. Life is always happening, and you have to be able to adapt by improvising a reaction. You make your plans, and then you hold them loosely.

For Katniss the plan had been survival. At first it was about her own preservation, but very soon it became about protecting those around her: her mother and sister, her best friend Gale, and eventually her fellow Tribute, Peeta. She was already compelled to serve a cause greater than herself, but even that cause was too small, too narrow. Her fellow citizens in the Districts needed

her to serve as their symbol, the Mockingjay. They looked to her to lead an uprising against the Capitol.

It was not something she wanted or planned on. But it was the only way she could protect those she cared about, and the only way she could accomplish her plan for a life together with them. Katniss’s skills and relationships made her well suited for the role. Her plans and experiences also prepared her well. She served as the Mockingjay by answering a call greater than personal survival or success.

The call did not come without significant sacrifice. It meant that Katniss’s life was no longer her own. She was not free to do or say whatever, or to go wherever she pleased.

Likewise, answering a call to serve the cause of Christ surely requires us to make sacrifices. We must let go of things we desire or aspire to, things we feel entitled to as adults, as Americans – perhaps even as Christians. Living for Christ surely requires us to limit or even deny our own comfort, happiness, and security.

Perhaps God is calling you to take center stage when you’d prefer to be quietly backstage or safely in the audience. Or vice versa. Perhaps God is calling you to ministry where you’ll have to trust Him for financial support, when you’d rather be bringing home a comfortable salary. Or vice versa. Perhaps God is calling you to live far from home when you’d prefer to return to your roots. Or vice versa. You fill in the blank.

Are you ready to answer the call? Graduating seniors, are you ready to be the Mockingjay for the cause of Christ? Continuing students, are you making your plans? Are you developing those skills? Are you building those relationships? The Hunger Games are fiction, but the Kingdom of God is real.