The End of an Era...A New Beginning

So I'm sorry about missing last week's post but I just got back from spending a week in the Bay Area.  I know, I know...you feel bad for me.  The truth is, I didn't spend much time admiring the views, eating the food, or visiting the tourist attractions of San Francisco. 

I was deeply entrenched in study at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, sitting under the wisdom of a professor whose class concluded my seminary career.  After five days of study, suddenly it was over.  There was no post-work for the class...no more books to read, no anything.  I took a final and POOF, my Master's in Divinity was complete.  I walked out the door, boarded a plane, and three hours later I was back in Colorado. 

As I traveled back towards the Centennial State, towards Denver, and eventually the beautiful village of Monte Vista, Colorado I had a great deal of time to ponder my seminary life.  I was able to recount the initial feelings I had when I entered seminary in 2007...those thoughts and hopes that I held regarding what would be my temporary career.  I remember thinking that seminary was going to change everything.  I remember being so intimidated by the thought of learning Koine Greek and Biblical Hebrew...looking back I realize the intimidation I felt was one of the most accurate feelings that I had!  83 hours of study seemed an eternity away and the only thing that I knew was that at the end of my seminary career I would be prepared to tackle most issues that I could encounter.

Well, my education is temporarily complete.  I made it through Greek and Hebrew.  The program was extensive, and intense, and at times I questioned whether it would be worth it to continue pursuing this seemingly endless goal.  But from the vantage point of today, I realize now that I was so wrong about many of my aspirations.  Although seminary did change some things, I am still the same person that I was five years ago.  I still deal with many of the same issues that I did before seminary started: I struggle with laziness and impatience; I have a propensity towards a lack of self-control; at the same time I would rather control and manipulate my environment  rather than delegate certain responsibilities and run the risk of not having everything done to my liking.  I still joke at inappropriate times; I would go three days without shaving if I could get away with it; I'd rather watch football than study.  I am me...and seminary didn't transform me into the perfect preacher mould.  I am incomplete and occasionally dense.  I have moments of incompetence and try to hide that obvious fact from anyone around me.  I sometimes want to hide from myself and I struggle to dig out of the recesses of loneliness and despair even though I'm smiling as I walk through a crowd.  

At the conclusion of this era in my life, I am walking away with a few lessons.  One, it's nice to know some big words but most people don't care...hermeneutics; ecclesiology; communitas. See?  Two, seminary was never meant to fix me but it did enlighten me as to what changes need to take place in my life.  It accomplished this in a couple ways:   it put me in close contact with brothers I can be accountable to and who truly care about me; it filled me with the deep conviction of the holy presence of God so that I am far less confident in my own "goodness" but rather consumed with the goodness and grace of my ever-present LORD.  Third, seminary convinced me that I can never know everything so I need to stop pretending like I do.  This was one of the biggest lessons (and one of the most difficult).  At the end of my seminary career I think I actually know less about God and the extent of His Glory than I did before I started.  It's as if the first few layers of theological illumination have been peeled away and world upon world has been uncovered in a dense strata of thought and opinion of which I have barely begun to scratch the surface.  Lastly (but not leastly...really?), I have become content with who I am without settling to stay the same.  Each semester challenged me in a completely different way to become more of what God would have me be.  Each professor pushed me to think more, to feel more, and to express more effectively the transformation begun, completed, and hoped for as God and I wrestled for control of my future.  That lesson is one which we all can identify with, whether seminary students or not. 

2 Timothy 2:10-13 states, "For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. It is a trustworthy statement:  For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us; If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." 

Just as Paul describes His surrender to God and to other people, so also we can live in a state of submission to Christ as we long not for our own desires to be fulfilled but for God's will to be perfected in us.  We can strive towards the day when we kneel before Christ and humbly submit a life lived in service to Him and others as validation of a commitment made to His Lordship. 

Not all of you are seminary students; many of you have no desire to pursue this path. Even so my hope is that you would learn the lessons that I acquired in my time at Golden Gate.  Acknowledge your weaknesses; humble yourself before His throne; adjust your attitude to a place of complete dependence.  For me, this is the end of an era, a time which I will reflect back on for the rest of my life.  But in reality, as is the case when all things end, it's a new beginning, a chance to start fresh, and an opportunity to change directions, make adjustments, and proceed to become all that Christ would want us to be.