I am starting an endeavor of putting my thoughts and struggles to paper in the hopes that not only may I connect to those back home but somehow help those who may happen upon my blog. Anything that I do now, I do with the intention of ministering, and, as I've learned...well, ministry is so much more than preachers and walking out on the street exorcising demons out of homeless people.
On to my education: to be quite frank, academically, I didn't quite struggle at the level that I thought I might. Come time for finals I was relaxed and ready to finish my classes. Then again, I have a very easy-going personality and my work-load may very well have overwhelmed someone who was more inclined to anxiety.
My biggest struggle while in school was spiritually. When my ministry professor stated one lecture that, "It is actually harder to be a Christian at a Christian University." It ultimately became the most relevant and truthful thing I heard all semester. Whilst here I am hyper sensitive to my spiritual failures. I always feel that I should be a better person, more supportive somehow, I should read my bible more, I should pray more. I'm in a sense of spiritual self-consciousness...but as I reflect, I don't think it's a bad thing.
I've truly experienced worship as a lifestyle rather than an act. Being a good student and actively investing my time into learning is a very worthwhile form of worship, a simple note played off on instrument is worship simply because it is a utilization of God's gift. Worship need not be, "Oh great God" it is living out the spiritual gifts that God has giving us and embracing them as gifts from God.
So maybe I am not experiencing some "bible-thumping" revivalistic education that may have me return ready to slay demons and rough it with the marginalized it a grandeur fashion. But I am becoming a Christian scholar while all the while having my spiritual walk refined in ways I didn't even know needed to be refined. I have had people tell me that perhaps the bible is not completely inerrant, yet somehow the bible has become even truer for me over the course of the past few months.
Yes perhaps not every story is rooted in fact and there may be dispute over whether events did or did not happen(think the parables) but does that make the bible any less true? Since when did truth equate to factuality? Perhaps I will always struggle with the old testament, but once I begin to look at it as a book of human nature and look at a book as what it is and not what I want it to be it gains such a richer relevance to my life.
I think of my Exodus/Deuteronomy class. Why is it so repetitive and why is every punishment inevitably ending in death? Because God wanted to emphasis the sheer gravity of obedience. If death wasn't the punishment would the Israelites(prone to wander) truly realize how important obedience was to God or would they simply think that his rules were mere suggestion?
I haven't experienced these great charismatic acts in chapel, no. But I've seen God's spirit move in the subtle ways that some days every single one of my classes seem to ring true with similar messages. Let's reflect. I'm taking business, biology, and a bible class....under normal circumstances they shouldn't have the same general theme...ever...and yet I walk into class and it's almost as if God is trying to send some message to me and me alone.
I almost feel like I have theme weeks where God tells me, "Okay, this week we're working on this aspect of your life."
And as I go through both math and biology I have begun to see the world in a greater light. There is so much detail and predestined order in the minutest of details that I don't see how anyone can look at these things of the world and see that they were not created by a creator. How can a world so inclined to entropy be so organized and self-sufficient by it's own means? Don't be fooled, my biology class is no different than any other biology class....and the more I discover about the world the more I am inclined to find truth in the fact that science neither proves nor disproves God. Science is just showing us how the world works. It is this great organization in the way our body functions and how some little fraction called the "golden ratio" seems to be in everything from faces to the rings on a fruit or pinecone that leads me to believe I am just a small part of something far greater than myself.
Like my math teacher said once(I am paraphrasing), "We are blessed enough that God allows us to understand the world in part, but at the same time everything is so complicated that we can't even begin to fully realize it." It's like Ecclesiastes 3:11, "He has made everything beautiful in it's time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men yet they cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end."
With these ideas in mind, I suggest a Christian University to anyone who wants to look at the world differently and see God in topics they might not expect God to be in. Because, honestly, if I wasn't here, I never would have begun to see the world the way I do now. And this new world I live in, it's alight with God's works.
And it's more than just about our own spiritual relevance, but on God's greatest commandment to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. It's a tall order to love someone else as much as we love ourselves, yet that's what my school is trying to get at.
This Christian life is more than just about you, it's about serving your community and seeing God in all aspects of your life not just your church aspect. Religion isn't spoon fed but you can't come in simply believing you have all the answers(because that's when you get torn apart). Dare I say it, you have more questions about God when you leave than when you get there. And that might be scary to some.
But that's what's great about the Christian life. The fact that we can never necessarily become the perfect Christian. There is always something new to discover as there are always things to improve on. Christians, the true kind, do not claim to be perfect or have all the answers, we are simply trying to live our lives in a way that might benefit everybody.
Christianity is about sacrifices and giving up our own personal luxuries for the sake of obedience. God doesn't want perfection, he simply wants someone willing to say that they are imperfect but they want to continually strive to make God happy simply because they love him. Because ultimately love is sacrifice. And I think far too often people are afraid of God because they are too afraid to sacrifice their own needs and the fact that loving God means being dependent on Him.
And my dependency is calling me to go pursue my education. And I welcome next semester with eager expectancy. Because my life isn't about me, it's about God's work through me, and that fact most, is what I'm most eager to see.
