New Post!

Hello,

So I have been really bad about this thing and I will be better now that I am going to be an intern again. I am sitting in the library at ACU at 8:30 in the morning because I thought I had my Greek final at 8:00. Unfortunately, I have just discovered that it is not until noon today. I really do not feel fortunate.
One week from today I head out to Richardson Texas (part of the DFW metroplex) to do another youth internship. As I am finishing the semester and as I prepare to leave I have been thinking about this last year. Here are some thoughts:
This year has been the worst thus far in my college career. Personal matters have kept my mind bogged down and unfocused on school while school has consisted at one point with having Hebrew, Greek, and Exegesis all in the same semester. The semester I am about to finish has consisted of a ministry class that (ask anyone in the Bible Department!) has no use whatsoever for my life and a missions class that has caused my life more grief than Greek and Hebrew combined. I think about one of the spirituality authors we discussed in Dr. Childers' class this semester; John of the Cross. He writes about a period in life called the "dark night of the soul." John is convinced that this period of grief or hardship must come in every person's life who seeks to draw closer to God. A good dose of disappointment and distress is God's antidote for our selfish and loud behavior. What does it take for God to get his people to listen? John of the Cross argues that it is different for each person but calls it generally the dark night of the soul. The time when God finally breaks through and a person is bombarded with all the things God has been trying to say all this time and finally gets through. This has been my experience this last year. Surely, this is not the only time I will face hardship in my life, but I feel now that I finally understand God in a way never seen before for me. The strange thing is, it did not come from a great Bible class or a sermon or a lesson from some teacher. It came from God giving me what I needed: a nice hard slap over the head.
When my dad really wanted to get through to me, he either would hit me up-side the head or use his iron fingers of death and poke me so as to get my attention. It usually did. While I do not pretend to say that I would like God to do something like this (how awful would that be??), He has his own subtle ways of getting my attention. Answering prayers that I think I know what I'm praying until God answers it and it's not what I thought I was praying for. Please do not misunderstand me as saying that I have God figured out. Not at all! But the Bible gives us examples of how people have experienced God over the centuries. I am seeing the way in which I experience God as his adopted child and worker.
May God never cease to teach me lessons that I need to learn and reveal himself to me in whatever way he deems acceptable.

Shalom