A Little Trepidation

Exams are finished.  As of today, my seminary education is half-way completed.  I meet that reality with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation.  On the one hand, though I like learning and am enjoying my studies, I most certainly not a person who’s cut out for years of studying in an academic setting.  I’m excited to ‘get to work’ again.  On the other hand, I’m acutely aware of how much I yet need to learn.  I’m already anticipating the mistakes I’ll make in ministry as a result of either not knowing enough or being more sure of myself than I ought to be. 

As I think about it though, I wonder if that isn’t a good model with which to approach life in general – with fairly liberal doses of both excitement and trepidation.  Excitement about new challenges and experiences.  Excitement about all the good things that life brings – laughs and birthdays and backyard barbeques.  And yes, even excitement about successes that I’ll have – times where either I or my kids will say or do the right thing. 

But the trepidation is always lurking in the background.  Trepidation about all of the firsts that new a new experience brings.  The times when I’ll say or do just the wrong thing.  You know, all of those things in life that keep us humble.

And that’s exactly why trepidation can be a good thing.  It’s forces to me stay humble.  To not get too full of myself when things go well.  As strange it at may sound having a feeling of insecurity now and again is just what I need to make sure I am secure – not in myself, but in Jesus.  For me, knowing that I won’t always get it right takes the pressure off.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very concerned about doing it right and doing my best, but I’m also fully aware that sometimes (maybe even most times) I won’t get it right.  Being overly humble rather than overly confident about my abilities will help me be able at admit my mistakes rather than defend them.

As soon as I don’t have enough trepidation in my life, is when I think I ought to start being worried.  But I face those trepidations with the confidence that I don’t face them alone.  God is right there with me, in the excitement and the trepidation of life.  My confidence lies in his ability not my own.  So, bring on the trepidation and enjoy the excitement.  Life offers plenty of both.

Semester Ending…

Early this year on this blog, I mentioned (probably more than once) that this semester was going to be a busy one.  Well, I’m here tell you that my ability to predict the future remains fully intact.  This semester has been a full one.  As a result, the blog has taken a back seat.

This afternoon, I find myself with a few moments to provide a quick update.  Jessica is out doing some holiday shopping with the older two kids and Alex is napping…check that, Alex WAS napping…we’ll see how far I get here.

This coming Monday is last day of classes for the semester already.  I’m finished with all of my papers, sermons, and assignments and, for the most part, I’ve done well on them.  However, there’s a few I don’t have back yet, so the jury is still out on those.  Tuesday is a review day and then exams begin on Wednesday.  I’ve got one on Wednesday; two on Thursday; one on Friday.  So this next week will consist of much studying.

The semester has been a thought-provoking one.  I’ve learned a lot about how to better read and understand the Old Testament in my Old Testament Narratives class.  I’ve gained valuable insights into how to think about and do worship in my Forming Worshipping Communities class.  I’ve been challenged to wrestle with and get greater clarification about doctrine in my Systematic Theology class.  I took an elective on the book of Job this semester which was very challenging.  The book of Job raises a lot of difficult questions and forced me to think about a lot of issues concerning reality of evil and the goodness of Job and the struggles with the consequences of sin.  In my New Testament Narratives classes we’ve talked about the relationship between the Gospels and the variety of interpretations that people give to the life and work of Jesus.  To say the least, I’m going to have to remember a lot of information for my exams next week.

I’ve also been meeting regularly with my vocational mentor which I’ve been enjoying.  It’s been very helpful for me to ask him about things we talk about in class and reflect practically.  It’s one thing to talk about things in the context of a classroom it’s wholly different to put them into practice in the context of pastoral ministry.  Questions about worship, theology, doctrine, the Bible and a host of other things.  So I’ve been very appreciative of what I’m learning both inside and outside the classroom.

In addition to school responsibilities, Christmas is also in full-swing here.  We’ve set up the tree and all the decorations and we’ve done a little shopping. However, Alex’s curiosity has prevented us from placing the present under the tree.  I’ve also scooped the sidewalk and put plastic on the windows. Yep, winter has arrived!  

Last night, Jessica and Bethany and I went to a production of The Nutcracker performed by the Grand Rapids Ballet Company.  I'm not what one would call a connoisseur of the ballet, but I thought it was very well done.  But the best part was that Jessica and Bethany thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Zachary is getting older so we decided that he could be left in charge of Alex.  He did a superb job.

Thanksgiving

It’s been a while since my last post, but it’s been a pretty regular few weeks.  We are all currently in Canada at Jessica’s parents’ house for the holiday.  It’s not a holiday here (Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October) but we are enjoying some downtime here. 

Despite the fact that it isn’t a holiday here, our hosts were gracious enough to prepare and serve a traditional Thanksgiving dinner which we will have tonight.  I’m very excited!  Eating, as many of you know, is one of my favorite past times.

I appreciate the fact that we have a today dedicated to being thankful.  It’s good to take a moment and reflect on our many blessings.  However, as Christians, I think we need more than the occasional reminder that our lives should be characterized by thankfulness.

I truly believe that being thankful should be a way of being for Christians.  Thankfulness is not something you do, it is an attitude you have.  Thankful is who we are and how we live.  Living thank-full lives naturally leads to lives that are joy-full, content, peaceful, and all the other Fruits of the Spirit.  Thankfulness serves a dual role.  In addition to freeing us for showing the fruit of the Spirit, at the same time, it combats envy and greed and malice and anger – and many other attitudes that oppose the fruit of the Spirit.  So it not only helps us reflect on the positive it allows us to counteract the negative. 

So today, celebrate with family and friends and turkey and stuffing.  But remember that tomorrow and everyday thereafter our lives should reflect have an attitude of gratitude for what we have been given by God – not just here on earth, but in heaven as well. 

Thanksgiving is not a holiday, it’s a way to live.  Live a thank-filled life today and always.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Worship Time

Last Saturday night we set our clocks back on hour marking the end of daylight savings time for another year.  I for one am grateful for this.  My 8:00 classes began while it was still dark and that did not make me happy.  Now at least, my day starts in daylight even if it already getting dark by the time it ends. 

And all of this got me thinking about time.  Most of the time, I think of time of something that happens to me and I have no control over it.  Time moves along a continuum and I have only have so much time to get something accomplished before I come to the end of the continuum.  It moves at a constant rate of speed and if I don’t keep up with it I’m in trouble.  My work won’t get finished, I’ll miss the bus, I’ll be late for class.  For the most part, time is linear.

Twice this semester in a worship class that I’m taking, we’ve been encouraged to think of time as circular.  Instead of thinking about time in terms of a line  that we move along, we talked about thinking about it in terms of a circle that we move around.   The difference is that there is not a defined started and ending point, it just keeps going.  In addition, it means that time isn’t something that happens to us, it’s something we participate in.

If you think about, our calendars are circular as well.  We tend to think of them in terms of lines – days, weeks, months, moving along a continuum – a timeline.  But they are also a circle.  Draw a circle and put January at the top and then February and so on until December and think and then think your day as a circle you get up, do your stuff, and go to bed, and then you get up and do it all over again.  

Now apply this to the liturgical church calendar.  Start with Advent and move to the Ascension in a circle.  Now think of a worship service this way, not it terms of a line – what we can fit into the next 60 to 75 minutes – but as a circle.  Start at the top with God calling his people to gather for worship and moving through the parting blessing and there again is God calling his people to gather.  It’s a constant cycle that repeats itself week after week. 

In my mind, thinking of it this way accomplishes two things.  First, worship becomes not a set of minutes that has a start and an end but an endless cycle It doesn’t start and end it continues in a never-ending cycle of praise. 

Second, it turns worship into something that we participate in rather than something that happens to us.  Worship doesn’t happen to us, we are active participants in it.  We don’t just stand up and sit down, listen and speak, pray and sing, because we’ve reached the point on the continuum.  We do these things because we are participants in a continuous and ongoing relationship with God, picking up each week, where we left off last week.  We don’t go back in time, or start a new timeline, we just step right back into the circle and keep right on going.

Sure, time still happens to us.  I’ve still got to show up to class on time and make sure my deadlines are met.  But having a different way to think about time might make me less inclined make excuses for what I do and don’t have time for and it might make me make different choices about how I use my time the next day.  After all, every day is a new circle.

Happy Reformation Day?

As I sit here and write, I’ll be interrupted frequently with a knock at the door by kids dressed up in all manner of costumes and several who aren’t dressed up at all.  My own kids are currently out in the neighborhood doing the same.  In fact, they just came in the door with their haul.

Halloween has always been one of those ‘in the world, but not of the world’ kinds of things for me.  Even growing up, we always participated, but my parents made it quite clear where we really stood on the issues surrounding Halloween.   It was something fun to do as long as we kept things in perspective.  We always went door to door, but we never got into Halloween parties or the like.  We didn’t decorate the house.  It wasn’t a big deal…it was mostly an excuse to get a bunch of candy for free.

Growing up, I found it a rather unfortunate accident of the calendar that Reformation Day and Halloween fell on the same day.  Would Protestant’s have as many ‘mixed feelings’ about Halloween if it didn’t share itself with the hanging of the 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany?   Maybe some would, but for the most part, I think there’d be a lot less angst over Halloween among Reformed Christians if it were on a different day. 

Even so, I’ve appreciated the fact that over the years both at home and at school our kids have learned that today is also, Reformation Day.  What happened today is an important event in the history of the church.  As long as our kids keep remembering that history and learning about that event maybe having my two-year old put on a spider costume and go door-to-door saying, “tick-or-teat” isn’t the worst thing in the world.  Besides, Jessica likes to roast the seeds that we pull out of the pumpkins when we carve them.

So I, for one, wish you a Happy (and guilt-free) Reformation Day and I hope you get lots of candy.

A Foreigner no Longer

This is a little belated, but as of Wednesday, Oct. 19th at 1:00 PM, at the Gerald R. Ford Museum here in Grand Rapids, Jessica became a bona fide naturalized citizen of these here United States of America.

For those that may not know, Jessica is a Canadian citizen.  Born and raised in St. Catharines, ON she came to Dordt College in 1994 on a student visa.  After we got married and determined that it was likely we’d be staying in the U.S. for the forseeable future we took the next step in the process to make her stay here more permanent. 

So in August of 1997, as part of our honeymoon, we made a trip to the Immigration Office in Omaha, NE (romantic, I know) where we began what came to be a two-year process to get her a green card.  So two one-year temporary work visas and a special request for travel to attend her brother’s wedding later she had a green card.  Officially, she had become a Legal Permanent Resident Alien of the United States.  This status would be good for ten years (the longest duration allowed) before we would have to apply again.    This gave her all the rights and responsibilities of a US Citizen except the right to vote in any election of any kind.

But somehow, Permanent Resident Alien still seemed to, well….foreign. First of all, only the US government can call something that by definition only lasts ten years at most ‘permanent’.  Second, that word alien…it just isn’t very inviting.  She was living AS an alien and I was living WITH an alien…neither of us were too fond of the moniker. 

Her most recent green card expired in May of 2011, so last year about this time we started talking about what to do next.  Do we apply for another green card and get us another ten years or do we go whole hog and get it done once and for all?  After talking about it ourselves and taking wise counsel from others, we opted for the latter.  Thus began the research.

We would need to submit an application for naturalization which would need to be approved.  She would have to undergo a ‘biometrics’ appointment in which her fingerprints would be taken.  After that, we would have to appear for an interview in Detroit where she would be quizzed on her knowledge of the history and government of the USA.  A quiz that I doubt many Americans could pass and if we could successfully navigate all of that her application would be recommended for approval.

So we sent in the completed application in February of this year.  Completed the biometrics appointment in April and attended an interview in Detroit on June 13th and then we waited. 

The next government notice we received was that we missed her oath ceremony on July 20.  The problem was that we had never received the notice to attend.  So after more waiting and phone calling, we found out that her oath ceremony would be on October 19, 2011.

The story takes many twists and turns – not the least of which is neglecting to bring her green card to the interview in Detroit which was just about disastrous – we made it.  The ceremony was very well done.  She was sworn in with 85 others representing 37 countries of the world.  It was solemn and fun all at the same.  For many, this was a dream come true. 

What’s this all mean?  It means that I no longer with an alien, I guess. But, as Christians, I suppose were all aliens….we’re just permanent resident aliens here on earth as we await the Lord’s return.  In the meantime, we swear an oath of allegiance to our countries even as our true allegiance is to the ruler of every country.

Welcome to the US of A, Jessica! 

Theodicy

Lately, a number of things that I’ve both encountered and have been studying have led to my doing a lot of thinking about ‘theodicy’.  Theodicy is essentially the relationship between the goodness of God and the reality of evil.  The word first appeared in print in the 1700’s in an essay by a philosopher named Gottfried Liebniz in which he was attempting to reconcile the goodness of God with the presence of evil.  The word itself is the combination of two Greek words:  Theos – God and Dike – Justice.   Understood using those terms, theodicy is the study of the justice of God.

Three things have led me to contemplate this lately.  First, I’m taking a class on the book of Job this semester.  Much of the discussion in the class has centered around the challenge of reconciling the goodness of God with the reality of evil. We have essentially been wrestling with the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  What does the book of Job offer us, if anything, in answer to that question?  In addition to that, we’ve been discussing the providence of God in Systematic Theology which leads to the question, “What is God’s plan?”  Second and third are two instances of untimely death that have affected friends of ours.   Last week, our neighbor's 18 year-old niece was killed in a car accident after she got in a car with a drunk driver; and just this morning we learned that a young father of three who is a friend of a friend died of a sudden heart attack while biking.

Why do these things happen?  Were these deaths a part of God’s plan?  If God is good, why does he allow bad things to happen?  I’m not going to pretend to answer any of these questions here.  There has been much ink spilled in literally hundreds of books over hundreds of years that have attempted to do just that. There are a lot of people a lot smarter than me that have done a lot more thinking about these issues than I have.  Besides, I wonder if it’s even possible to give a humanly satisfying answer to that question.  So what do people who’ve been throw into unexplained grief need to hear?  What do you say to a child who’s just lost their dad?  To a mother who’s just lost her daughter?

I’ve thought a lot about how to address these questions pastorally.It seems to me that questions of this type of even harder to answer when you’re a Christian.  If you don’t believe in God to begin with, in a certain sense, the problem of theodicy doesn’t exist.  In that case, the questions of “why?” are profoundly different than if you believe in God that is good – a God that is “slow to anger and abounding in love.”

I’ve heard my share of pastoral horror stories,  Pastors and other friends who, even though they mean well, end up saying just the wrong thing.  Instead of helping they end up hurting.  I’ve also heard my share of stories of pastors and friends who’ve done the right thing and have made all the difference.  Note the distinction between saying and doing.  Most often, the stories of helping that I’ve heard have centered not so much on words but on actions. 

I don’t think we can ever provide words that can answer the questions imbedded in theodicy, but I think we can provide acts of kindness that acknowledge the grief of another.  Often what people need most in times of suffering are not words, but gestures – a hug, a smile, a tear, sitting with them in silence and sorrow.  I think, this is where Job’s friends get it right.  Job 2 tells us that his three friends sat with him in silence for a whole week before entering into a series of speeches attempting to console Job and defend God.  In the end, Job 42 tells us that Job spoke rightly and his friends did not…perhaps sitting in silence and solidarity with their grieving friend was the best answer of all.

It might be that, as a pastor, I’ll never be able to satisfactorily answer the question, “Why?”  for those that are grieving. But I do hope that I’ll be able to satisfactorily mourn with those who mourn in such a way that doesn’t attempt to answer the questions but at least attempts to understand them.  Part of my job will be to provide the words, but I hope that through my actions, more so than my words, those who are grieving will, at some point, be able to say again with the psalmist, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation” (Ps. 13:5).

God is Good and God is Just….I’m just not sure that there is good way reconcile those two things in this life.  Ultimately, that lack of reconciliation is itself the problem of evil.