Love and the Seminary Student
No, this is not about a Lifetime Channel rom-com. It may not enter the minds of the general public, but seminary students often face a stigma in the church. Sometimes they are viewed as out-of-touch, or as intellectual snobs who think they know what’s best for everyone. I was very aware of this and wrote a memo to myself before I entered seminary so that I would stay down to earth. The people who run seminaries seem to be aware of the stereotypes surrounding them too. To prevent this they offer courses that help the spiritual formation of the student, which can encompass most parts of life, but to make sure that the student knows that they too need to progress spiritually, not just the average church goer.
Even though I had written a memo to myself reminding me that there are real-world problems still happening in the midst of my studies there were and still are areas of my life that need to be addressed spiritually. Though there are more than I’d care to count, the one thing that I’ve become more and more aware of that needs work is love. Yet, it’s such a big word that encompasses a lot of things. The kind of love I’m talking about isn’t romantic love for one’s spouse, or the love of one’s family (although they can be affected). It is the love of one’s neighbor that I struggle with. I’m not disagreeable with people, but I don’t actually engage with others that well either. In some cases, I believe it’s just as bad. It is bad because the reason I’m in seminary in the first place that God has placed a calling on my life to share the Gospel with everyone. The second reason I’m in seminary is that I believe I am meant to equip others to do the same as well, which seminary trains you for. The key ingredient in those two reasons are other people!
What is great about God is that the more you seek him, the more you love him, the more you begin to love people. This realization of maturing how I love wasn’t born out of guilt, or embarrassment, it was born out of conviction. The founder of the Methodist tradition, John Wesley, believed that through sanctification, the Holy Spirit reveals “inbred sin” that we then trust Christ to remove from us, which increases our love for God. Wesley also believed that a sign of sanctification is that by loving God and trusting him also means you can love the other. I tend to agree with Wesley as I see this happening in my own life. The more knowledge I have of God, the more I love God. The more I love God, the more I come to find that I have a heart for others.
Cultivating Love
Even though God is working in me, I don’t believe God wants me to remain passive in the process, but wants me to work with him. The question is; what can I do to give him more to work with in this process of love? As of right now, I believe there are a couple things that I can do, and I’ll address them in this section.Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
I was talking with a friend on the phone recently who happens to be a pastor and he was complimenting me on the fact that I was in seminary learning things that were far beyond what he has learned. I, however, confessed to him that I was a bit envious of him because he was a pastor of a church who was getting to experience the everyday, nitty-gritty, practical needs of his congregation, and that is something I lack in. I realized though how uncomfortable he might have been at times because of this, but that he dealt with it because he knows that loving God means loving others too. Therefore, one thing I want to improve upon in maturing my love is by being open to the uncomfortableness of life that God might lead me to do whether is in the city of Canton, Georgia, or the in homeless camps in Eugene, Oregon, or even in the slums of southeast Asia. If God wants me there, then that is where I need to be; loving the people that He loves.Love in Every Season
It’s easy to be cheerful and loving when things are going well in life. It is harder to remember that God wants you to love others when things are dim. For example, my wife and I have three children now and our hearts are filling to the brim with love for them and we have even been able to make friends with other families and bond as our children play together. It wasn’t always like that though. A little while into our marriage, we were struggling with serious fertility issues. My wife’s friends who had gotten married were also trying to have kids and seemed to be having no issues. While we were happy for them at first, it got harder and harder to be enthused for them the further we sank into the pain of infertility. Yet, love requires a commitment in every season of life and we were able to connect with others who knew the pain of infertility and we now have a special compassion for people who go through it. The point is that I’m going to strive to find a way to love and grow in love no matter what season of life I’m in, or what age I am. If there are times I need to relearn how to love, or love others in new ways, I think God will make it worth it.Words of Advice
I don’t know if there is anyone reading this who is considering entering seminary, but if there is please allow me to give you some advice to help your faith as you go through your education. My first piece of advice is that you don’t need to be like everyone else to succeed in your calling. What will help you succeed is to accept your identity in Christ and how he is working that out in you (Philippians 1:6). My second piece of advice is to be patient while this is taking place. You may get overwhelmed at times at how long it is taking, but as my pastor just told me recently, it took David twenty years of waiting before he became king, but he trusted God while he waited until it came to happen, so can you. A third piece of advice is to be a life-long student. Don’t think that just because you’re going into seminary that you’ll be more knowledgeable than everyone, be humble and realize that there are countless things in life that God can use to teach you that will take you far beyond seminary. The last piece of advice I have for you is to take Christ to heart when he lists the two greatest commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-39).” God bless.References
Paul Petit, Foundations of Spiritual Formation. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2008.
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