I sat down on the couch of my empty dorm room with my devotional, a collection of short writings by Spurgeon. Yet I could not focus. As I looked around my dorm room, at the clean floor, the fresh smell, the piles of packed bags and scattered things about the desks, I was reminded of the beginning of the semester, back in August, when things were still new. As with then, there was no anticipation of assignments now. No longer commanded by a schedule, a list of things "to do," I could relax. It has been a somewhat chaotic semester; I am still trying to sort it all out in my mind.
There is a sense that this should not be new. I have had full time jobs where my life was consumed for at least a third of the day. Yet when I went home, I went home. That was it. That was my time. It was my time to talk to friends, to go places, to hang out, to read, to write, to do as I wished.
Yet it is not so here. For classes give homework, and dorms give distraction, and it is an environment both educational and social, all tossed into a mixing pot of Christians from all kinds of circumstances. It is a bubble in one sense, an other-worldly cultural experience in another. And generally, I came into this wanting it. I came knowing it would be hard, but I came desiring a new experience. I desired discipline. I desired to grow and learn. And to some extent, these things have happened, and to some extent, I have caved in at times, and I have not approached everything with the patience and the love that I should have. It may have something to do with the fact that I prayed for humility at the beginning of the semester?
God-willing, I will be back in Waukesha next year; I will be back at NTBI, if He is willing. But I will not be living at the school. After several meetings with the deans, this decision has seemed best. I will be able to learn to live on my own, and hold a job, and it may potentially lower some costs.
Yet it seems to be, above nothing else, an answer to prayer. For long, I have not known whether to continue at NTBI; regardless, I have also come to a church that I love and would like to call my own. If for nothing else than for my church, I want to live in Waukesha. After meeting with my pastor at the beginning of the year, I realized that scripturally-speaking, the local church should be a believer's priority: over job, over hobbies, over everything apart from perhaps one's own family and personal relationship with God (for these are most important.) It does, hoewver, include my education: the church takes precedent over school, since it is a duty of the church to instruct in the word of God. Therefore, if I cannot return to NTBI as a paying student, then perhaps I will come to audit classes. If I cannot do that, then perhaps I am finished after all with this school. God will determine all. My first priority remains, to simply find a place to live in the town so that I can continue fellowship with my church. I am confident that if I put my effort to this task, God will place me where He wants me and provide what is sufficient.
For the time being ... I think it will be strange to go back home -- it always is. I seem to be forming a habit of not staying in one place for long, or in one circumstance, so going back to a familiar one is, in itself a foreign experience.
The flight leaves tomorrow afternoon. I'll be in Pennsylvania for about a month. God willing.
Shall see how it goes, yes?
There is a sense that this should not be new. I have had full time jobs where my life was consumed for at least a third of the day. Yet when I went home, I went home. That was it. That was my time. It was my time to talk to friends, to go places, to hang out, to read, to write, to do as I wished.
Yet it is not so here. For classes give homework, and dorms give distraction, and it is an environment both educational and social, all tossed into a mixing pot of Christians from all kinds of circumstances. It is a bubble in one sense, an other-worldly cultural experience in another. And generally, I came into this wanting it. I came knowing it would be hard, but I came desiring a new experience. I desired discipline. I desired to grow and learn. And to some extent, these things have happened, and to some extent, I have caved in at times, and I have not approached everything with the patience and the love that I should have. It may have something to do with the fact that I prayed for humility at the beginning of the semester?
God-willing, I will be back in Waukesha next year; I will be back at NTBI, if He is willing. But I will not be living at the school. After several meetings with the deans, this decision has seemed best. I will be able to learn to live on my own, and hold a job, and it may potentially lower some costs.
Yet it seems to be, above nothing else, an answer to prayer. For long, I have not known whether to continue at NTBI; regardless, I have also come to a church that I love and would like to call my own. If for nothing else than for my church, I want to live in Waukesha. After meeting with my pastor at the beginning of the year, I realized that scripturally-speaking, the local church should be a believer's priority: over job, over hobbies, over everything apart from perhaps one's own family and personal relationship with God (for these are most important.) It does, hoewver, include my education: the church takes precedent over school, since it is a duty of the church to instruct in the word of God. Therefore, if I cannot return to NTBI as a paying student, then perhaps I will come to audit classes. If I cannot do that, then perhaps I am finished after all with this school. God will determine all. My first priority remains, to simply find a place to live in the town so that I can continue fellowship with my church. I am confident that if I put my effort to this task, God will place me where He wants me and provide what is sufficient.
For the time being ... I think it will be strange to go back home -- it always is. I seem to be forming a habit of not staying in one place for long, or in one circumstance, so going back to a familiar one is, in itself a foreign experience.
The flight leaves tomorrow afternoon. I'll be in Pennsylvania for about a month. God willing.
Shall see how it goes, yes?
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