If God wills it, one month from today I will graduate from Dallas Theological Seminary (!!). So I have spent some time this week reflecting on the past three years (okay fine, I was required to do it for an assignment...)
My overwhelming sense as I look back on seminary is massive gratitude. I could never have imagined that I would learn as much as I have: in the classroom, in friendships, and in time with God. I am saddened though, by the fact that I was often a poor steward of that gift. I wish I had been a sponge, but many days I was a stubborn rock. On my good days, I know that God knows me better than I know myself, and that He hasn’t wasted a single second of my three years at DTS. On my bad days, I just try to read and study as much about His grace and love as I can before my innate legalistic perfectionism raises its whip.
Looking back more objectively, I do see evidence of the Spirit’s work in me during the past three years. Before seminary, I spent zero devotional time in the Word. Now, I do a short reading most mornings, a longer meditation most evenings, and I spend long car rides and commutes listening to an audio CD of the Bible. Those things don’t get me into heaven, but there is evidence of spiritual fruit there, especially since I do them for enjoyment and really sustenance rather than out of a sense of duty. Before seminary, my ministry work focused more on pleasing humans than on pleasing God (though I wouldn’t have recognized it then). Now I find I often forget the extent to which I am serving because it doesn't seem like a separate thing I do, checking off a Christian box. It’s just part of who I am. Before seminary, I didn’t think much at all about any social justice issues, and I didn’t really ever share the gospel. Now I am passionate about orphan care and I teach the gospel to a room full of preschoolers and young-in-faith volunteers each week. Before seminary, I could tell you some facts I knew about God. Now, I know where I stand on major doctrinal issues, and I know which ones will take me the rest of my life to sort out (if not longer... cough eschatology cough).
Beyond all of these small things, though, my experience in seminary has taught me to trust more deeply in the Lord. I am a planner. I like to plot out what I’m doing next and why and where and how and print out maps to get there. I entered seminary with only the faintest notion what God would call me to do after seminary. He has given me amazing glimpses of His plans for me during the past three years, but I still don’t really know what’s next. There are a handful of major possibilities all up in the air right now (one of which I am longing for much more than the others, but that's for a later post). Three years ago, that uncertainty would have driven me to distraction. Today, I can look ahead with great peace and thankfulness (and okay fine, some moments of desperate pleading). I don’t know exactly what God has in store for me, but I know He has never failed to exceed my expectations. I trust that whatever is next, as long as I am faithful to follow His will, will be good, even if it is painful.
I once heard a preacher call marriage the “sanctification super highway.” I think seminary may be a contender for that title as well, not because I am super sanctified, but because it has been a time in which God has hammered intensely at my heart. I've gained great wisdom from all I have learned about the goodness and holiness of God, but also great humility from all I've learned about the wickedness and brokenness in myself. I have found deep passion for loving the fatherless, and deep frustration in working with the flawed. I have found solid direction in following wherever God leads, and also prolonged uncertainty as He has given me glimpses of just one step forward at a time. Seminary has been hard on my soul in ways I didn't expect. But it has been good for me to an extent I never imagined it could be. I have seen, with shame, just how much of my heart is still ruled by a selfish toddler, but I have also seen how relentlessly faithful God is at winning her to His will.
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. --John 15:1-4
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