on seminary and tunnels

I came to Seattle Pacific University because of a direct call from God. I entered seminary because of a call. Yet what I’m learning is that a call is not a guarantee. You have to cultivate a call. You have to nurture it, pluck away the weeds from around it, water it, and protect it. But it’s worth it.

I thought that because I was called that I would love every second of it. But that hasn’t been the case. It’s been hard. There have been so many times where I wanted to quit, where I thought that I wasn’t going to make it. And to a certain extent, I still do. However, what I know to be true is that I’m not doing this alone. I have a crowd of witnesses around me, encouraging me and supporting me, cheering me on.

At SPU, one of the undergraduate traditions during graduation weekend is a ceremony called Ivy Cutting. It takes place in Tiffany Loop, one of the central locations on campus. Tiffany Loop is like a town’s “Main Street”, it’s an identifying marker of the school. All the graduating seniors gather in the middle of campus—far enough away from Tiffany Loop that it is not visible. The graduates then enter the ceremony along a sidewalk that leads into the Loop. But this walk is not the solitary walk of the formal graduation ceremony. No, this walk is crowded and noisy and wonderful. You see, the sidewalk leading into the Loop is lined with every professor and staff person. As the graduates walk, the professors and staff cheer and hoot and holler. This is a moment of celebration!

Tonight I was reminded of that ceremony in a conversation with one of my professors at the end of the class. We were talking about some of my struggles in seminary. He said, “You’re too valuable. We’re not giving up on you; and we’re not letting you give up on you.” Seminary is like that entrance into Tiffany Loop at Ivy Cutting. Yeah, it might be more like crawling than walking and the path may seem more like a climb up Mt Everest than a paved path, but it is lined with professors, staff, colleagues, classmates, friends, and family.

Often we use the language of tunnels to describe the timeline of a journey. The person who just finished the last quarter of classes is at the end of the tunnel. The person in the last year of classes can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've gotten into the habit of joking that I'm in the middle of the tunnel with no end in sight, that there doesn't even seem to be an end. But my metaphor is missing a crucial piece. My tunnel is not a lonely tunnel. I have a crowd of witnesses attesting to the fact that there is an end and that I'm not alone. I am the one who has to walk the journey, I am the active participant in my story. But I am not alone.

editing and iron

In my English Composition class, we have do peer reviews for our essays. I haven't always been a fan of peer editing even though I've been doing it for nearly eight years. Today, one of my classmates and I were talking about peer editing and how we both liked a review that ripped our paper up rather than a review that was nice. Yeah, it sometimes hurts my feelings to see all of the problems that the reviewer wrote down, but I know without a doubt that my essay gets better because of the criticism.

It got me thinking at how similar that it is to my faith and having my brothers and sisters in Christ hold me accountable. Accountability can often seem like a negative thing. But God calls us to help each other grow closer to Him. Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." That is kinda like what a peer review does, it sharpens your essay.

So, may God use your brothers and sisters in Christ to sharpen your faith and may God use you to sharpen the faith of your brothers and sisters.

Real Community

I normally have a specific format for this blog and don't ever just give a shout out to another blog. However I feel that sometimes its important to break a "rule" for the better of everyone here. So here it is!

The blog is called Real Community and the purpose of it is to encourage, "people to come together to glorify God through community. We want to address the false idea that people have to go through life by themselves. We want to come alongside people in their struggles and use that to deepen our relationship with Christ." I really encourage each of you to take a look at it.

God, I just want to lift up Real Community and the bloggers who write on it. Use them to cause a revolution of what being a Christ-follower looks like, to form a worldwide community full of real people who don't have everything figured out.