James 1:15 is becoming more real to me. I lack the discipline required to study like I ought. I lack the wisdom to see the importance and value of putting in the hard work of memorizing Greek vocabulary and paradigms.
God is good. Today has really been a stellar day. Nothing BIG or earth-shattering happened today, but I think that's how God has 'wowed' me with with His goodness. Just from a refreshing church service this morning, to spending quality time with my roommate, to being taken to a grocery store by a friendly neighbor, to a night worship service and an invitation from the twenty something crowd there to spend the evening with them, God revealed Himself to me today. Seeing Him involved in "small" things is a real blessing that I hope will happen more often. Having my "small" things be so good is what makes a day a stellar day.
We were eating pizza, drinking beer and soda, and throwing bean bags into platforms in a competitive game and I marveled at how God designed us.
Here was a whole crowd of people that I just very recently met who embraced me and loved me as their own. God created us so that doing something as simple as a backyard game of "corn-hole" (the bean bag toss) we could coax every ounce of pleasure and enjoyment out of it. Our security is in Christ and our identity is in the LORD, therefore the joining together of ourselves is good, beneficial, and every bit a part of being a part of God's Kingdom as evangelism, worship services, mission work, etc.
I'm just really happy here.
At our orientation one of the people who was on the admissions selection team gave us a vision casting talk. He told us how he's heard all of our testimonies, he's read all of the letters of recommendation, and had the pleasure of talking to most of us already. He's been privy to the powerful stories of God working diligently in all of our lives to bring us to this same point. He was marveling at how amazing God is and how much treasure there is in being able to discovery wonderful things about one another. He told us to treasure each other and dig into one another's lives because he knows how much treasure there is to be found. His repeated line was, "I wish I could tell you... but I can't tell you." Let me tell you, as I was sitting around a table on the deck of a new friend's house I found real delight in hearing bits and pieces of these people's lives. They went on to tell me how difficult seminary can be. Everyone over the last weekend has been telling us just exactly how profoundly difficult these next few years will be, but also exactly just how worth it it all is. I never had so much fun hearing about how hard life might become.
Life here isn't perfect.
I've already struggled a decent amount with lonliness, feelings of inadqueacy, fear, and doubt. I'm pretty sure that I decided to take all of those pictures during my car ride because I was struck by the lonliess of being in a car for so long, expirencing so many things, and not having anyone to share it with. I had this impulse to share my life so I started taking all of these pictures and fantasized about the video I was soon to create and how impressed everyone would be. What it ended up being was an amazing opportunity for me really to turn to the LORD and realize that He really wanted me to share that time with Him first. He wants me to let Him into all of the areas of my life and to enjoy a long car ride with me.
Life isn't perfect, but God is wooing me to Himself (we studied Hosea in church this morning) and as part of that process He's led me to St. Louis. Really, I am eager for life here!
Just like over the summer these are all pictures from my camera phone which doesn't have the best quality, but it maximizes it's convenience (so basically, I probably would not have taken any pictures otherwise). These are some of the buildings on campus. There are not too many buildings and there are some that are brand new and some that are quite old. I'm eager to spend time on it though! Here's the first batch!
These last few months have been pretty wild! The last time I posted on this blog was from the St. Louis airport. This time I'm posting my new living room IN Saint Louis! I moved into town on Friday June 6th. On Saturday we had lots of orientation stuff. This Sunday morning we tried out a local church, had a big group lunch, and I'm just trying to continue getting settled in. Monday morning at 8:30am I'll be at my first Greek course!
Here are some e-mails that I sent out over the last month or so to let you in on some of my thinking of what has been going on in my life and what brought me here:
Dear Friends and Family,
One way that God has been hard at work growing me as a man has been to reveal to me what it means to have a good dream and to chase after it. A pretty characteristic way for me to make decisions in my life have been to always wait and see what has fallen into my lap. Out of desire to guard myself against chasing a dream and not getting it I will usually take the path of least resistance and wait to see what happens to me. God is showing me that He can redeem my dreams. There are bad things in life that I have wanted and there are some dreams that need to die. However, for me to believe that it's actually ok to want something and then make the effort to make it happen, to rearrange my life, to make an investment in something, is good is something of brand new thinking. So as I'm about to graduate I've chosen to move to St. Louis and attend grad school at Covenant Theological Seminary. Which means that I'm saying 'No" to Westminster Theological Seminary near King of Prussia. Lately, someone asked me which school I wanted to go to. I had up until that point really only been trying to weigh the pros and cons from the standpoint of which school would be "best." Certainly, that wasn't a bad idea, but I had be largely ignoring my personal dreams and desires. There are a number of reasons why I am convinced that Covenant offers the best program for me, but after talking with people, praying, and thinking it through I realized that I really wanted to try the adventure of moving to St. Louis and starting over somewhere new. I realize that for three years it would be worth it to spend the extra money and be further away from you all to seek out the best education and most sanctifying experience. Going to Covenant isn't necessarily my biggest life dream, but I think I would seriously regret not taking the chance. It's something I defiantly want to do.After seeing the power of God's Word to change my life one of my life goals is to help others understand God's word better as well. It feels incredibly presumptuous of me to even speak the words, "I want to be a Pastor," but, for now, I am convinced that this is that path I am to take. God has been chasing after me and has really laid my path out for me. Trying to proactively make a decision about the next three years has been more difficult than I anticipated. The path of least resistance probably would have taken me to Westminster but the path of chasing my dream will take me further from you all, through more difficulty, and more debt. I want to thank you for being a part of my life. You have supported me and given me guidance. I am seriously excited to move forward in trusting God by taking a step of faith and doing something risky. I hope continue to keep you informed with my journey! In Christ, Jason
Hello Friends!God has been good to not only prove me to be an impatient person (in order to further make me more patient) but also to demonstrate His commitment to His goodness to me. Today I signed my contract to rent an apartment in St. Louis. My new address is 412E Covenant Ln., Creve Coeur, MO 63141 !
It is housing owned by the seminary so I'll be living with three other single guys who will be my classmates. Our apartment is in the middle of a community full of covenant people including young families, older singles, etc. It'll be excellent! The apartment is a short walk campus. It is fully furnished. It is pretty cheep ($310 a month including utilities!) The kitchen is nice. It comes with a vacum cleaner. There is already an entire bookshelf for just for me and one to share (they must know that seminary students will live there). It's exactly what I've been praying for and what I want to thank many of you for also praying for!
It's been an amazing process of teaching me that I need to be praying for things that God might say 'no' to. I will leave June 4th (or maybe the 5th) and this last week we have been worried about how much supplies i'll need, if we'll have to rent a u-haul to get my furniture there, or if i'll even have a place to go to! I was fairly confident that I would eventually get something, but I was so hesitant to ask God for the best case scenario because it seemed that if He did not want it for me then it would have been foolish and selfish. However, I wasn't believeing that whatever He would give me would be the best case scenario no matter what, so therefore God wants me to want good things and ask without fear. To see Him actually comming through and afirming that I wanted the same thing that He wanted for me and giving it to me is just thrilling.
Life at "home" has been interesting. It has shown my very real tendency to simply just "go along" with life. It has been restful and enjoyable to sleep in and catch time with family and friends, but there are many ways that I could have been a much better steward of the time and opportunities. My parents have been very patient to put up with my forgetting to do things that I've promised to do and my lazy putting off of things that would have been serving to them. With the TV on or my friends over, or having no "offical" time to wake up for has made the hours easily slip by. I don't think it's so bad to be resting and not "productive" but these two weeks have just exposed me as irresponsible (forgetting doctors appointments, forgetting to fill out and mail forms, not cleaning up after myself, etc). I'm the kind of guy who needs a savior.
I shudder to think of the laziness and irreponsibilty that God has already saved me from and developed me towards maturity. I am thrilled to think about how my choosing to be obediant to the Lord and taking steps in the future that will be most conducive towards me falling deeper in love with Himself will reveal how free from the bondage of sin I really am. Grace brought me safe this far and it will lead me to St. Louis and even life beyond that!
Thanks again for the wealth of support you have showered me with recently. I appreciate all of your prayers and guidance! Keep in touch this summer! What's been difficult? What's been exciting? What's been humdrum? In Christ, Jason
I'm going to Seminary for lots of bad reasons. I have good reasons too and now I'm trying to live a life of putting aside the bad ones, really pursuing the good ones, and being open to surprises. It's been a strange journey to get me to this point. I think what I've realized is that I actually do have certain life goals: 1) To fall deeper in love with Christ and 2) help Christians understand Christianity better (namely by allowing them to fall more madly in love with Christ too). In light of that, I've decided to come up with some career goals that are quite similar to my life goals (makes the list easier to remember). That's why I'm going to seminary. I'm taking steps to be a pastor of a church. I'm at Covenant Theological Seminary because what I want is to say with Paul, "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" and I have become convinced that Covenant is an institution that is committed to not only knowing about Christ but just actually KNOWING Christ. More than anything the best way to combat all of the bad reasons I have for going to seminary is to encounter and embrace Jesus. I want to be in a place surrounded by the people who wrote to me in a letter saying, "The education of our students is far more than a merely academic exercise--it is our ministry to you and to those whom you will serve in Christ's Church. Our goal is to walk with you--not only through your seminary years, but also well beyond--so that, by God's grace and for His glory, you may faithfully fulfill the ministry to which He is calling you." I'm so excited.
I'm (still) learning to be more open with people and offering of myself. This blog is a step in that direction (like a band-aid on a missing limb).