The 20 Things I learned at SPU

For some people, small, beautiful moments are what life is all about. There are Eden days—or an Eden year in my case. A year where you pray that the days would linger just a bit longer; wishing that life could be frozen forever in the present moment, these feelings, the incredible people that surround your world. I already miss strolling to class early every morning in a sea of hip looking people with warm coffee in hand.

I smooth out my bed sheets and glance around my “new” and familiar room for the next three months and everything calms, my favorite small Voice stilling my restless heart. This is what I am, what WE are: Blessed, Blessed, Blessed. 

As I look back on this year, the biggest truth I discovered is that setting aside your dreams and instead seeking the will of God with all your heart is always a much better plan. If it’s meant to be, God will make a way. God’s timing is perfect. God has a plan and His plan becomes our stories

The reality of life is that dreams die, plans change, and seasons end, but God is not done yet. The beauty is in this whole process, not just the end results.  Life is a string of ends and beginnings. Those two seem to always come together—like the closest of friends.

Something ends and something begins and I’m missing the sweet memories of junior year and a bit nervous for what is to come. I’m melancholy for what’s behind and what could have been and I have never travelled this road that lies ahead of me. Some days I am even bold enough to say that I am scared — I wonder if bends in the roads can break things…. Can break people?

Roads can twist, bend and turn and the only thing that calms me is that small Voice: “Do not be afraid. I am always with you. Nothing can separate you from My love. I am for you.”

Since I am a Type A personality list person (there is no better feeling then crossing something off a To-Do-List), I grabbed my journal that night and began to dissect and reflect on this past season of my life. Questions, memories, and lessons learned flooded my mind until I spilled out this list of 20 things. My pen stopped, this was the list my heart had been longing to see, the reassurance that God’s fingerprints were covering my entire school year and He would continue to walk right by my side as I enter the next season too: Senior year. As scary as that sounds—as unprepared and unqualified as I feel I am for what God has called me to do next fall. I continue walking down this twisty road because I know that I never walk alone.

So I present to you my list of the top 20 things I learned at my first year at SPU as a junior. My heart is that all things will be done in love, for the glory of God’s name, knowing that He is with me and I am His Beloved.

The 20 Things I Learned at SPU

1.     Ministry is messy. If you want to touch, impact, and leave your mark on the world, you’re going to have to be okay with getting your hands dirty. Every chance I have to love imperfect people (AKA everyone, including myself) is another chance to perfect God’s love in me. We are all messy, broken, recovering sinners drenched in the grace and love of a God who makes beautiful things. Breathe in Grace, Breathe out love.

2.     It’s not our job to change people. It’s our job to love people. Love is what changes us and only God saves. We are advancing HIS kingdom, not our own

3.     The most dangerous people are the ones who don’t believe their actions are affecting the world around them

4.     God is always good and I am always loved.

5.     Let people see you bleed. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Be transparent. If you believe Jesus shines in your weakness, prove it.

6.     God desires for His daughters and His sons to join hands in building His Kingdom. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. I will spend my life fighting shallow theology and restoring God’s vision of a Blessed Alliance between men and women.  Ministry is about spiritual gifts, NOT gender.

7.     The essence of creativity is risk, believing enough to leap into the yet unseen. The theological term for this is faith. When we stop fearing failure, we start being artists. I wrote my first hymn and survived an entire year of 8am Music Theory and Aural Skills! Music has become a constant encouragement for me to find meaning, beauty, and goodness in our world rather than in something beyond it. Escapism is never the answer, nor is it biblical. Jesus is redeeming, restoring, and renewing the world, not destroying it

8.     Living with a belief in God is very different from living as God’s Beloved.

9.     Dear SPU Hipsters, If you attempt to correct my pronunciation of “Bon Iver” one more time I’ll sucker punch your face all the way to France.

10.  I read Genesis 3 and realized one of the reasons sin came was Eve and the Serpent were having a conversation about God without God being there. Convicting…. Grateful for the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit, let’s not neglect to invite Her presence into every healthy debate, study, and conversations we have about God.

11.  Open your eyes—there are still resurrections everyday and we are witnesses.

12.  I am madly in love with Northwest culture: coffee, hipsters, the causal swagger of Seattle and Portland, constant rain, the music scene, and the glorious green nature. One of my dearest friends once told me that; “sharing a cup of coffee with someone you love is one of the greatest moments ever.” This is a truth being lived out daily at SPU.

13.  As a Communication major I like to think that I am studying to be Jesus' PR (Public Relations) manager—since I want to be a pastor and heading to seminary Fall 2013.  Which has led me to recognize that most people think Jesus is either a madman or the Son of God. Also, Plato and Aristotle really screwed up the Theology in the early churches and still impacting the church today.

14.  Character over accomplishments. What we do is not as important as WHO WE ARE.  As children of the King of the Universe we are too blessed to be stressed.

15.  Living in the dorms taught me more than any book could on the Trinity. We are made for community because we were made out of community. We long for fulfilling relationships because we were made in the image of the most perfect relationship: the Trinity. Having to live with others in community, also forced me to realize I am not the most important person in the world

16.  I unexpectedly fell in love with the church, the Bride of Christ. It is vibrant, diverse, messy, multi-voiced, Kingdom advancing, filled with a variety of perspectives and experiences, multi-ethnic, Spirit-led, ancient and historical, beautifully complex groups of people coming together to serve a God who takes broken things and broken people and transforms them into something beautiful and whole. Amazing!

17. The first demon possession, which Jesus drove out, was at a religious event. That says something to me. After attending a Christian university for a year that fact doesn’t shock me as much as it use to. Christians get really offended and horribly mean when other Christians don’t sin the same way they do. (Read Mark 1:21-28)

18.  If I learned anything from attending Mid-Day Prayer all year long was that God has more words then yes, no, or maybe. He has a fully formed vocabulary and can talk. We pray to God like he is a complete idiot and only knows three words (I’m still guilty of doing this). Let me tell you friends, ask God bigger questions and you will be surprised to find bigger conversation with God a reachable reality.

19. The wonderful gift that is the bible because I have never read any religious book or story that is ridiculously vulnerable, completely honest and raw about the downfalls and failures of its heroes than the bible. The story that heals the brokenhearted, romances the lonely, comforts the rejected, and pierces straight through to the messy condition of our hearts. I also know that the bible is not God, a Paper Pope, or part of the Trinity. The power of the Scriptures comes from the Holy Spirit moving and working through it and breathing the words to life.

20.  Following Jesus is purposeful insanity.