I haven’t posted in a very long time. There have been various reasons for my silence of late, ranging from my being extremely busy to the fact that most of the time, I really don’t feel I have anything valuable to say. I personally feel that if someone is going to blog and expect others to take time to read it, they should do their best to post something worthwhile. Take Gunner, for example. You can tell that even when he posts about personal things, he has an underlying intention to see his readers edified and God glorified. Well, tonight, I think I may actually have something worthwhile to say. Maybe.
When I returned from Israel, I had meant to post a series of reflections on my time I spent there studying. But for a number of reasons, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Every time I attempted to sit down and write about my wonderful semester studying in IBEX, I couldn’t get the words out. Sin and the consequences of sin were weighing heavy on my heart, and I desired to be back in Israel very much. Christmas Break was a time of reflection and introspection, and the Lord was faithful to show me areas in my life that needed major attention. But as Psalm 66 tells us, God “tries us as silver is tried.” For silver to be refined, it needs to pass through the fire. Christmas break was definitely a time such as that.
To be honest, college in many ways has been a refining time itself. I was driving down to LAX in the middle of the night last night with Hugh Jackson, and we began discussing how the Lord has changed us since we arrived at TMC in the fall of 2004. I told him that one of the things I’m most thankful for is that the person who I was in August 2004 and the person who I am in May 2008 are two drastically different people. The Lord has been faithful to grow me and teach me many a valuable lesson in four years, and I am so incredibly thankful.
But now it’s coming to an end. Today I had my last one-on-one lunch with Rob Ikegami, and it was one of the best times of fellowship I’ve ever had with him. We had an IBEX reunion tonight at Stonefire/Starbucks/Bridgeport/Starbucks again, and I don’t know if/when we’ll all get together again. In the past weeks, I’ve had my last Spring Party, last Year End Show, last chapel, last ASB meeting, last SLS meeting, last Executive Council meeting, last Political Studies Class, last college finals week, last Generations Bible Study, last hang-out with this person, last-hang out with that person, and so on and so on.
Yes, the “lasts” make things bittersweet. It adds a stinging feeling to the end of the school year, knowing that this wonderful experience is drawing to a close for good. But I was talking with the fiancée of a good friend about a week ago (at the last ASB meeting, incidentally), and she said something simple yet very comforting:
“It’s a good thing how sad this makes us feel because it lets us know that we’ve had a really good time.”
I think many of us fight a sinful tendency to look back on any given period in our lives and either focus on all the things that went wrong or to dwell on any regrets we may have. I know I battle this often. I think it is a human tendency to dwell on the bad; and I think the Lord encourages us to do the exact opposite. When you look at the example of what Samuel did in 1 Samuel 4, when he established a stone memorial (an “ebenezer”) so that the people of Israel could look upon it and remember how the Lord gave them victory over the Philistines, you get the sense that God wants us to do this in our own lives. It glorifies the Lord when we look back and instead of maximizing our regret over our past sins and mistakes, we praise Him for the way He has brought us through.
I cannot begin to praise the Lord enough for what He has done for me these past four years. I have been blessed upon measure with wonderful professors, godly friends, and great experiences. I got to live in two great dorms where I had a lot of fun. I got to study in Israel. I was able to serve on ASB for three years in a row, two of those years on Executive Council. I was challenged and confronted by good friends who cared enough about me to not let sin fester in my life. I was able to be a part of and serve in an incredible church and truly phenomenal Bible study. I learned subjects and studied writers and concepts that have revolutionized my thinking. And to think, that I never deserved even a minute, even a second, of this wonderful experience— and I got four years of it.
Absolutely no question, all praise and glory goes to the Lord.
Now, there have been rough times in college, too. No doubt. Sanctification is a rough road for all who go down it, and growth doesn’t happen when you’re sitting fat and happy on the couch, that’s for sure. I’ve had to learn many a lesson the hard way. But I’ve taken comfort in Hebrews 12, where the writer shows us that God disciplines those who are His own, so that they may develop characteristics of godliness. On the morning of Spring Party, actually, I was reading in the Psalms, and I stumbled upon these verses, and they brought tears of thankfulness to my eyes:
“I shall not die, but I shall live,
And recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has disciplined me severely,
But He has not given me over to death.” (Psalm 118:17-18 )
The Lord indeed has brought me, like all who are His, through seasons of discipline. College has unquestionably been one refining episode after another… but it’s been so much fun. God has been faithful to provide great times of joy and happiness alongside hard times of stretching and growing. I think this is true in the lives of all Christians. God is not a sadist—He doesn’t sit in the heavens and keep thinking of ways to make our lives miserable. No way. His end goal is to see us become better worshippers of Him, and so He wisely takes us through experiences, both good and bad, to foster in us those traits of godliness that He desires to see in us. It is our responsibility then to be open, teachable, and responsive to such correction. I think of the chorus of the Caedmon’s Call song, “Let Me Be”:
So let me be open, let me be humble,
Let me find the joy of my salvation in your cross.
Let me be broken whenever I stumble;
Let me remember the great mercy of my God.
And that’s really all that matters, right? That we look to the mercy of God, that we look to the wonderful and glorious Cross. Isaac Watts once wrote that:
Without Thy sweet mercy, I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair,
but through Thy free goodness my spirits revive,
and He that first made me still keeps me alive!
Sometimes I fear that as soon as I walk across that stage at graduation and cease being a TMC student, my world will lose all flavor. All color will be drained out of life, everything will be a shade of grey. There will be no more fun to be had; all fun will be reserved ever and only for those who are still students at TMC. I thank the Lord that He has brought wise counselors into my life and has shown me Himself through His word that nothing could be further from the truth.
Now, granted, TMC is an awesome place to have fun. Crazy stuff happens there all the time that happens nowhere else and I’m really going to miss it. I think of my Uganda team this past semester, and how one night, we surprised Hugh Jackson by randomly taking him down to Diddy Riese, only to then spontaneously decide to go to the Santa Monica pier. We hung out for six hours on the spur of the moment, and it was a blast. My college experience has been replete with such occasions of fun and spontaneity, and I know that things just don’t happen that way outside of college.
Also, granted, I have absolutely no guarantee from the Lord that life is going to get any more fun after college. Plenty of people whom I look up to and trust say that life is great after college. They acknowledge that they had a great time at TMC as well, but that the years following graduation have been just as good, if not better. However, I know that this may not be what the Lord has for me. I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but it is a very real possibility that post-graduation life could be filled with it’s own complex set of problems. Someone once said that college is not the beginning of one’s adult life, it’s the last playpen, and that your adult life really starts after graduation. Maybe.
But in light of all that, I return to what the Lord desires to see in my life. Is it God’s utmost and highest will for the believer that he or she lead the most fun-filled existence? Does God earnestly desire for us to have lives that are filled with crazy and spontaneous excitement? Though certainly all good things, including fun and crazy experiences, are the gifts of a good and kind God, we are not mandated to lead lives in which they are ever-present. No. There are two passages that I return to when I want to get down to basics:
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, and to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8 )
“But this is the one to whom I will look:
He who is humble and contrite in spirit
And trembles at My word.” (Isaiah 66:2b)
This is what God requires of you and me. I think I get it now, as I leave school. Fun experiences, crazy times, great things like Year End Show and serving on ASB and living in the dorms and going to Spring Party and studying in IBEX are all wonderful experiences that are to be treasured and looked upon as testimonies to the unmerited kindness of a loving Father. However, they are not required to lead a life that pleases the Lord. Therefore, they are not to be mourned in a way that resembles grief when they come to an end. Yes, I think it is appropriate to feel a measure of sadness when we reach a point when these things come to a close. I still miss high school football and my teammates, much like I think I will miss the camaraderie in the dorms and the craziness of college. However, it would be sinful to dwell on the ending of these things to the point that it distracts us from pursuing the things that the Lord desires to see in our lives: justice, kindness, humility, contrition over sin, and a reverence for His Word. These are the things you and I should be seeking for, agonizing over, and rejoicing when we obtain them. These are the characteristics, the concepts, the traits that matter to God.
So, as college comes to a close, I cannot help but rejoice in the kindness of the Lord for giving me four amazing years. I have been blessed with good friends who challenge me to chase after the Lord. I have learned so much, both in and outside the classroom. I have had a ton of fun with some really incredible people. But most of all, and all praise goes to the Lord for this, I have grown in my relationship with God immensely. When I came to college, I viewed Christ as a part of my life. Now I see that Paul really meant it when he said “to live is Christ…” That’s what life is: reflecting Christ and growing in one’s relationship with Him, deeper every day. And one doesn’t need to be at TMC to do that, although the school is a wonderful place to help foster that ever-deepening relationship.
It is then my prayer that we would all never stop chasing after the Savior, no matter where He may lead us. Truly we serve a faithful God. Let us then live lives of love and gratitude to Him.
