Starting Seminary

(That's my work book and outlines)

Right before I moved to Spain, I remember thinking like, "how am I going to learn an entire language? There are so many words and grammatical things to understand, so much detail and I am not a detail person." The thought of the next time I'm in America I will be able to speak and understand Spanish was crazy to me, and I just didn't know if I could really do it.

I think about that as I start seminary. The huge books, the lectures, the reading, like the most information in the world (it feels like). How will I be able to remember all that?? It feels like such a daunting task ahead of me... 90 credit hours, I will have 3 by January. Ha! That's like saying I'm going on an hour and a half run and I've gone for 3 minutes.. haha. And sometimes I'm like, can I really do this?... It's how I felt about learning an entire language.

The thing that kept me motivated when I was learning Spanish was not the fact that I will know more, but it was the fact that it helped me relate to and communicate with the people I loved in Spain. In the front of all my Spanish journals was the verse:

"Knowledge puffs up but love builds up." 1 Corinthians 8:1.

I struggled through language learning. I was not the best at learning a language, in fact even after being there a year and a half I still confused my el's and la's. But my goal was to love well even if that meant laboring through material, studying, practicing, and spending a lot of time not understanding the jokes and conversations around me. But eventually I began to get it..

So for seminary...if it's just about information and knowledge, I won't last. But if my end goal is to love people well, to communicate the Bible better, to introduce people to Jesus better, to build other's up in ministry over the course of my life, then maybe I can do it. Maybe... I still feel overwhelmed, but I felt that way with Spanish and I did it. So maybe I can do this too.

Here is a conversation about seminary I had with my sister Amy yesterday:
Amy: How is seminary going?
Me: It's going well, it's a lot of information, but I'm learning some really cool things. I bet it will totally come in handy for speaking and stuff!
Amy: haha isn't that point??
Me: Oh yeah.. I guess so!

It will come in handy for speaking. But even more I hope it helps me know and love Jesus and his word more (not just know about him) and communicate him and his word better in whatever facet of ministry I am involved with through out my life.

when Jesus becomes familiar

I was reading Mark 6 and Mark 9 this morning and contrasting the two. Here are a few observations.

Mark 6:1-6 is basically about how Jesus was teaching in his hometown. And all the people were like, "Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, and Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And so Jesus basically says that prophets don't have honor in their hometowns. It says that Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith and couldn't do many miracles there.

It's almost like they grew up knowing about Jesus and knowing of him, seeing him around town, and being familiar with him from a distance that they couldn't see him for who he really was. Since they didn't expect much from him, he didn't do much there.

I wonder if our society struggles with the same thing. Everyone grows up knowing about Jesus, we see churches on every street corner and Christianity is a commonplace, ordinary part of our culture. And how does that affect our faith or lack of faith? Does that affect the way we know of him or know him?

But then you look at Mark 9. In Mark 9 Jesus leads three people who are close to him up a high mountain where they were all alone with him. And on this mountain Jesus was transformed before them. His clothes became "dazzling white" and Moses and Elijah appeared. Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them and a voice came from the cloud, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

To a few people who really knew him, really followed him, whose faith expected much of Jesus, Jesus was willing to reveal himself to them in a new light. In an unfamiliar light. They saw Jesus in a different perspective than all those people from his hometown.

I like how it says, Jesus led them up a high mountain. That shows they followed him where he led even when it was a climb, even when it was inconvenient, not easy, and away from the crowd. I think to know Jesus for who he really is, to see him in an unfamiliar light we have to follow him up the difficult paths, even when it's not easy or fun.

Also it says they were all alone with him. I think to see Jesus up close and to really know him, to actually hear God's voice, we have to get alone with him, not just be familiar with him from a distance.

"His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them... then a cloud enveloped them.." I mean nothing about that is ordinary, commonplace, or familiar.

I want to see Jesus that way, I want to see past the familiarity and see him in his glory. I want to have faith that expects much and experiences much of Jesus. I want to know him even when he leads me in ways I'd rather not go.

And if I follow him up those paths, he might possibly take me to a place where I get to know him and see his glory in an unfamiliar light.

"For God...made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6

you can have all this world...

Yesterday at staff meeting Bruce Caroll started playing an old hymn that I haven't heard since 2007. It took me back to a moment when I was sitting on a patio one summer evening in southern Spain where I lived at the time, where me and a bunch of Americans sang this same hymn.

The words are simple but profound. The last few lines are, "When I come to die, when I come to die, oh when I come to die, give me Jesus, give me Jesus. You can have all this world, give me Jesus, give me Jesus."

I understand the lines, "When I come to die," not in a physical sense, but more an attitude of when I come to die to my self, my selfish wants and desires, when I come to surrender my life, give me Jesus instead. In essence having and knowing Jesus is more important than any other outside thing that once took precedence.

This week I have been studying 2 Corinthians 4:1-6. Verse 6 especially stuck out to me. "For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ."

He made his light of knowing the glory of God shine into our hearts. When I think of seeing the glory of God on earth, I usually imagine him doing big and great things, drawing tons of people to himself.

And yet it says, his glory is actually seen in the face of Jesus.

Maybe I'm trying to find his glory in outside things, like my work, what I do, my feelings of okay-ness based on my merit or my productive-ness for him. And instead it's in the face of Jesus.

Often times I don't want to come and die, I don't want to surrender, I want what I want more than Jesus. I want this world more and I want Jesus less. And when I see that surface in my life, when I see my lack of love and sacrifice for others.... I see my sin and my need for his grace.

This week I've been listening to a lot of sermons by Pastor Judah Smith and he said this and it has just stuck with me all week: "Grace is more a person than a principle. Jesus is the personification of grace. He is the embodiment of grace. If you're looking for grace, if you want to learn about grace, if you want to study grace, if you want to understand grace, look to Jesus and look no further."

It's not about me and what I do or don't do or how I feel I'm doing or even having the right attitudes, its all about Jesus and what he has accomplished for me on the cross by God's grace.

And so the common thread through this song, this verse, and this quote that God has brought to the forefront of my mind and heart this week, is Jesus. Everything I need, everything I want is in Jesus. Everything I fail at and lack is covered in Jesus. He is the grace that I need and when I look to him, I see God's glory in his face. That makes me want to know him more.

And when I know him as God's Grace and God's Glory I can truly say, "You can have all this world, give me Jesus, give me Jesus."