My Recent Realizations

It has been quite some time since I wrote on here, and though sadly this post is not to benefit its readers by nature; but maybe, dear reader, by my thoughts and realizations you, may gain something applicable to your life.

I have always had the notion that to please God with my life, I must become a pastor. Unfortunately, for most of that journey my head left my heart out of the decision making. I reasoned out of my largely stereotypical Christian upbringing that becoming a pastor was good and pleasing to the Lord.(I am not criticizing how children are raised up in the church, and I am ever grateful for my youth, but there is a blandness and repetition to the stories of many children of my generation, "I was saved in Sunday school in second grade," etc.). It is indeed true being a pastor can be acceptable to the Lord, but I thought in my life it was the only way to make my life a worthy sacrifice to the Lord. So instead of questioning my "desires" for becoming a pastor, I left them mostly untouched as if debating before God my life's path would pollute my pure desires. One of my recent revelations was that even though being a pastor could be acceptable to Christ, if it is not where my heart was, therefore I do not think that it would be acceptable to God. You see, in my recent quandary over this, I have finally brought before the Lord what my desires are to become a pastor. What I have found is that my desires are not so much desires of the heart and out of passion for the church, but obligation. To me now, if I stay my current course, becoming a pastor would not be something pleasing before God. It would be like the animal sacrifices of the Jews which were made not out of heartfelt repentance, but from obligation. I do not want to waste my life on something I am not passionate about, even if that something is generally a good thing.

I see now I have a couple directions to take after I realized that, and most of them include patience and prayer. Those directions are determined wholly by God's will of course, but I know and am not afraid to share the possibilities. I could continue my current trajectory and become a pastor, but if I were to do this, my heart would have to be in it and it would be something made out of want and not obligation. The other major option before me (major as in large and also academic major. Clever, right?) is to study English. The reason for that is simple, I enjoy reading and writing more than most other things and those are two things I am extremely passionate about. Even if I chose to change majors, going to seminary and becoming a pastor are not out of the question though, I would just have another option such as becoming an English teacher or professor or a writer, if I so desired. One quote I read in a book recently spoke to me like an oasis in the middle of a barren desert:

 "I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure, just as heretofore, when letters [literature] have declined and lain prostrate, theology too, has wretchedly fallen and lain prostrate; nay, I see that there has never been a great revelation of the Word of God unless he has first prepared the way by the rise and prosperity of languages and letters, as though they were John the Baptists. . . . Certainly it is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies, as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily." - Martin Luther, Letter to Eoban Hess

So to change majors may not turn out to be a large change, but it is only something I must consider and I wholly believe God wants me to ponder these things in my heart. I do not believe God wants Christians to follow in blind faith the paths which seem religiously holier, but rather He wants mankind to pursue His will for life, and many times pursuing means questioning, not with doubt but with wisdom and faith.

Many might consider Abraham a huge cog in the beneficial nature of blind faith, but Abraham did not follow with blind faith. Hebrews 11:19 says  "He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back." Abraham believed not in blind faith, but in the power of the living God and his promises. So too with my life, do I want to believe in the power of God and the promises he has made to His bride.