biblical worldviewing

The time is 11:50 pm and I just now got back to the house I live in after leaving it this morning at 6:45 am. Tuesdays, as I wrote before, are the longest day of the week–the day I drive to Charlotte and sit under 9 hours of lecture at seminary. I am exhausted, mentally over-stimulated, and greatly blessed.

As I think over this time of my life, I cannot help but feel thankful. The Lord did not have to bless me with work and employment in the form of substitute teaching, which has turned out to be a very satisfying and interesting job, but He provides. The Lord did not have to bless me with my gorgeous fiancee Sarah, which, after the longest day, is the best refreshment to see her, talk to, and pray with–even for just a 30 minute stop on my way home tonight, but He provides. The Lord did not have to bless me with precious opportunities to learn of Him and His Word, but He lets me be in seminary. And the Lord does not have to put me through trials–He could actually give me what my flesh wants and leave me to grow numb to Him through prosperity, comfort and health. On the contrary, the Lord lovingly reproves me through trials that make me to lean upon His grace all the more.

I feel God’s blessing through so many of the delightful things He gives, but sometimes I feel His hand upon me all the more through trials. Right now I can only say I am faced with an exceptionally large trial–but already I have seen the goodness of the Lord in putting me through this.

I hope to write more about substituting soon! There’s so much to say about that–I could devote a whole blog to it (or even write a book after a few more months/years of doing it). Call it something like “Sub-stance”. I don’t know…

Other than getting in a small accident going south on I-85 on my 2 hour morning commute that left a 3 inch hole in my front bumper (I hit a Suburban at a very low speed–no damage was done other than the trailer-hitch punctured my front bumper like a drinking straw through a styrofoam cup). seminary is such a blessing! I drive from Greensboro to Charlotte once a week for 3 classes that last the whole day. I start out at 5:30 am when I wake up, and try to get out the door from 6 to 6:30. I get to Charlotte and to campus at around 8:45 and go to my first class:

• Hebrews to Revelation

This class is taught by Dr. Kruger. Before the first class started, the guy next to me said, “hold on, Dr. Kruger is like a fire hydrant.” What does that mean? He explained, “you know, some professors drip on like leaky faucets, others are like garden hoses, but when Dr. Kruger lectures, it’s like… WHOOSH!” And he wasn’t too far off. Dr. Kruger came in and lectured for hours on Hebrews to Revelation and though much of it I was very familiar with, the lecture really went deep into background and history. It was so much information, but my favorite part was when he went into a lecture on apostasy in Hebrews, the Covenant community, and the clear teaching of the Bible on the Covenant community, the Elect, and the obviousness of Paedobaptism. A one hour break is given in the middle of this class for a rousing chapel with 100 men singing from the Trinity Hymnal and then a guest pastor preaches–in good, regulative fashion. After class gets out, I have one hour for lunch and then it’s off to

• Evangelism

This class is not quite as mentally taxing, since it is more subjective. We are examining different modes of evangelism and putting them through some biblical tests. I like how I am challenged to think more about witnessing to the people I’m around every day who may not know Christ, and there are some good guys in there who I have really enjoyed talking to. After this class, I have two hours to eat dinner before I go to

• Pauline Epistles

I was told this is one of the hardest classes of the entire M.Div course of study. It’s a night class that goes from 6 to 9 pm and has about 30 students. The professor is really professional and conducts his class similar to a Presbytery meeting. Like Hebrews to Revelation, there is a non-stop flow of information and I type away trying to get everything the professor, Dr. Cara, is saying. I like how Dr. Cara puts a lot more questions to the class to break up the lecture. He randomly asks what different Greek words mean or where different cities are in Asia Minor or people referenced in the Bible and things like that. Sometimes he directs these to the whole class (and I have answered a few of those), but other times he puts someone on the spot–which I think is valuable for the whole class. It makes everyone pay more attention since they never know when they can be called, and sometimes you get an answer from someone and it may not be what the professor was looking for, but you can see what led them to answer that and you learn. It’s good.

Well then, after that it’s 9 pm and I still have almost 2 hours of driving before I can finally see Sarah, and then go to my house to go to bed. It’s an extremely exhausting day, but I love it and I am really blessed to go.

I start my job as a substitute teacher for public school in this county next week! I’ll have to write about that too…

At some point or another, every husband (or fiance) must feel the way I did when I saw my fiancee, Sarah, at the airport after being apart from her for almost 3 months. It was a little bit before we got engaged, but we were courting and knew we going to be married. Now for the sorrowful part of the story (and the one that still brings up a little bit of argument between us). Sarah had already secured a job at a local summer camp as a first aid provider/nurse’s assistant for the most part of the summer. Therefore, in my head, I thought, “gee, I guess Sarah and I won’t really get to be together very much this summer anyway… and you know it would be kind of cool to go off somewhere far away and get a job for the summer…” And so I started looking for a job as a camp counselor in another state, and the offers poured in! I posted my resume on a camp staff website, and I was getting calls every day from places like Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and even Catalina Island, Los Angeles. So I headed to Texas and told her, “oh Sarah, it’s just for the summer. It will be over before you even know it, and you can have tons of fun at camp if you just try.” I should have known better.

Even though the Lord used this past summer in so many ways to stretch and strengthen, it was a hard one for both of us–but as hard as it was for me, it was probably 900 times harder for Sarah. She counted the days (from the very first one). She cried herself to sleep and woke up feeling like crying. She longed to be back with me again. You know, I think, in many ways, Sarah was always raised with the idea of her being someone’s good wife ever-present in her rearing. Being a godly wife is a central purpose for her life and something prepared for (either explicitly or implicitly) since she was very young! I’m sure many times she has longed to fulfill that purpose, and so who can blame her for being anxious and eager, and for being overwhelmed by being so close to being married, but still having to wait?

So after the hardest summer of either of our lives, it was nearing the time for me to come home. In the days leading up to the reunion, excitement was mounting! On the phone, I could hear anticipation and relief in Sarah’s voice that this trial was coming to an end, and she was devising detailed plans for the reunion. As a matter of fact, she had chosen to have a small outpatient surgery scheduled during the middle of the summer (which made it impossible for her to go to the beach with her family when they went during that same week) because the only other available time for the procedure was a few days before I would come home. She said she didn’t want to be fragile when I first came back. That crazy girl!

She bought a new dress, she did her hair the way I like, and met her good friends at Starbucks to chat before I came. She said if she didn’t meet them there first, she would have gone crazy waiting by herself at the airport and probably would have come like 5 hours early or something! I called her from Houston right before the plane took off. Then, after landing in Raleigh, I was trying to call her from the hall in the airport but my phone was dead! Instead of just going on and surprising her, I thought it was worth teasing her just a little bit more by plugging my phone into the wall and saying I would be coming down to the baggage claim in just another minute, and that I loved her truly. She was so excited! It had been so long since we were together that both of us had kind of forgotten exactly what it felt like to be together, and honestly, I think we were even a bit nervous. Would it really be the same as it used to be?

I rounded the corner, went through some doors, and ahead was an escalator going down, down to where she was waiting. Before stepping on the escalator, I peeked over the railing beside it and had a view down to the ground floor. There, looking down I tried to find her, but my view was blocked by the lower ceiling. Then I spotted a pair of sandaled feet and a dress just like the one Sarah described, but nothing higher than the knees. I knew it was her! I stepped on the elevator and watched those feet as I came down, and as the ceiling moved up relative to me, I saw legs, waist, shoulders and then the face of the one I love! I was still twice as high as she was and looking down, she looked like a little girl. She had the sappiest smile, a glowing face and the most sparkling, hopeful eyes–but most beautiful of all, and this I will never forget, she was clasping her hands together in front of her and literally shaking from head to toe with nervousness, expectation, but mostly joy. I will never, never forget what she looked like standing there because it touches me so deeply that this amazing girl would actually shake with joy over me. I walked up to her, stood in front of her for about 3 seconds just looking at her and smiling, then put my arms around her neck and kissed her awkwardly but finally! Later I found out her friends were off to the side with a video camera, but I didn’t care.

I can only wonder if what I felt was a tiny portion of the way Christ himself will feel and take glory in: the anticipation and joy his spotless bride, the Church, will express when he finally presents her to himself. His return will delight her infinitely more than my return delighted Sarah, but I think that through my relationship with Sarah I have barely started to grasp the heavenly realities of the love between the Lord Jesus and his Bride the Church. Thank the Lord for the gift of marriage! What a mysterious, holy expression of our God.

Happy Valentine’s day, princess!

At first I thought this was a kind of ‘oh cool’ thing, but Mike (the pastor I live with) made it seem like it was a big deal. What am I talking about? It has to do with the awesome car I drive!

Sometimes I wish I drove something rugged, like a 1984 Jeep Wagoneer. Then I wouldn’t wipe my boots before I got in, I would drive through creeks and stuff, and get a big black dog to ride around with me in it. Then I realize that if I had the jeep, I wouldn’t feel right about driving all over the state like I do now because of gas mileage. I think this car is pretty much perfect for me, and I keep it real clean and shiny, and it’s fun to drive because it’s standard trans.

The big event happened the other day. My odometer went from looking like this:

Then, in one historic moment, to this:

Lots of vehicles reach this “milestone”, so it’s not like a really significant event. I’m more excited to celebrate the destinations than the miles… it’s not the amount of miles, it’s that they were quality. In the past years, I’ve driven this car to the following places:

• New Hampshire and back, with lots of side trips to Maine, Boston and Vermont, 2004. Slept in it on the New Jersey Turnpike the night before my first day of classes at UNC Greensboro, Fall 2004.
• Boone, several times for visiting my sister at ASU. One of these trips being with my fiancee Sarah on September 8, 2006 on which I aked her to marry me on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
• Gainesville, Orlando, Palm Beach, Florida, 2006. Combination Birthday/Spring Break trip to visit my brother and friend.
• Dozens of trips criss-crossing the Great State of North Carolina

Besides that, I just have a lot of great memories of this car. It’s the car I drove to senior prom, the car I spent some of the first quality time talking with my fiancee in, my oldest brother used to have it in Kentucky, and my next oldest brother took it for some of his (I think) first dates ever. So congradulations, 2000 Honda Civic! You are responsible for getting me to Charlotte once a week for seminary, and driving me and Sarah around for several years to come. I thank the Lord for the blessing of vehicles, which I know he invented for the relief of Christians and use for travel so that the church might be encouraged.

P.S. - I’ll write all about my first day of seminary sometime this week!

Thought for the Day: I wonder if hearing that your particular, fatal disease is so rare that you are the only one in the world who has had had it for 20 or 50 years makes you feel any better? Like… some kind of reverse jackpot? I mean, at least you’re unique.