Relearning the Art of Leaning on God.

Being in seminary I have the pleasure of worshipping God with my mind all day long. In classes, as I do homework, and in conversations with my professors I get to think about, read about, and discuss the nature of God and his will for the world and for the church. This is a special and particular time of life as most of my life has not involved nearly this much mental engagement with God and I love having the opportunity to do so often in this season. That being said, discussing and reading about theology and scripture is not the same as spiritually engaging God and the opportunity to engage God with my mind all the time has often made me forget that I also need to listen to God, speak directly to God, and worship God with my spirit.

            Over the last week or two I have been reawakened to this need. In the midst of being newly single, being incredibly busy with school, dealing with finances, and being sad that my whole immediate family is now out of state I have often felt overwhelmed and alone. This realization hit me hard the other night and I turned in to God with the full force of what I was feeling that same night. Naturally, God was there, as he always has been. That night I was reminded again of his unending faithfulness to me. I was also reminded of my tendency towards being unfaithful and in those moments I often think of myself as Hosea’s wife Gomer, melodramatic as that may sound. I am so thankful for the reminder, found in the book of Hosea, of God’s faithfulness.

            I am thankful that the breakup I just went through was mutual and that it seems to have been what God was telling us to do. That being said, the complexities involved in breaking up have been stressful and I have had to ask God several times, “Why is this happening?” I had felt such a lack of peace in light of these complexities, until I took the time to sit down and listen for an answer. I felt like he said, in response, “You will not find peace, fulfillment, or real purpose until you found it in me”.  A quote from St. Augustine comes to mind here, “Our hearts cannot rest until they rest in thee.”

            I spent a lot of high school finding fulfillment in being a good student, being a good youth leader, and being a good boyfriend. When I came to Seattle Pacific for undergrad, all three of those things disappeared. I was dumped before college started, I started working for a different church where my ministry felt almost entirely unsuccessful and I graduated from college with a GPA significantly lower than the one I entered college with. As a result, the first three years of college involved a slow descent into depression until I realized that God’s primary concern was not my success in any of the aforementioned areas but in me knowing myself as his son. This realization was essential for pulling me out of depression; unfortunately I have not always been the best at remembering how important that idea is.

            I probably spent far too much of the six months I was with my now ex finding my fulfillment, yet again, in trying to be a good boyfriend. Now, I am again in the process of finding my fulfillment in God, and I do not imagine I will find peace until do. As wonderful as the work of doing seminary is and as much as it connects my mind to God, my heart cannot rest in that and my soul will not truly be fulfilled by that. Instead, I am relearning the art of leaning on God.