Tonight is the final for my Gospels & Acts class, and the official close of the semester. In three short months, I have learned so much in and outside of the classroom. Here are a few things that have really stayed with me.
- Finding balance is a constant progression, and distractions will keep me from my purpose.
- I’m not a horrible student.
- When I get out of God’s way, I can be pretty awesome.
- I can worship God through scholarship. Never thought about this before, but I can offer up our academic life to God as a form of worship. It does make me look at things differently. Thank you Prof. Catherine Williams. I will take your little nuggets with me.
- I have to be careful who I align yourself with. Through a very strange situation with a classmate, God showed me that I don’t have to go along to get along. If a situation, thing or person is out of alignment (or out of order in this case), I don’t need to be apart of the amen choir and back-up their chaos. Especially if it’s something I don’t agree with.
- Some see going through the Master of Divinity program as a means to an end and they set out to complete it in as little time as possible. This reminds me of something else Prof. Williams said this semester. “It may be God’s will that you are here, but you also need to do it God’s way.” Overloading yourself with a full-time work schedule, full-time grad school schedule, and a family may not be the most wise of choices to make.
- Digging deeper into the Word is fascinating and mind-blowing.
- The Gospels were not written 1,000s of years after the resurrection of Christ. They were written within the first generation of those who walked with Him and are based on eyewitness accounts. Period!
- “True faith is not a leap into the dark. It’s a step into the light.” Thank you, Dr. Keener.
- There are just as many scholars spending their lives trying to disprove the accounts of Jesus as there are those bringing forth the truth.
- Spiritual warfare is not a joke, a myth or to be taken lightly.
- “If God sends you somewhere, you don’t have to worry about being qualified to fulfill the task. God will qualify you!” Thank you, Bishop Gilbert Coleman Jr. I will stop thinking and saying anything that resembles the opposite of that thought.
- I will meet people from all walks of life and they will each bring something different to my life. And, I will bring something to their life in return.
- Prayer is a powerful thing, but I don’t need to receive it from those who are in “position” to pray over my new journey. I can pray over my own circumstance and have God’s blessing upon me. It’s also the people who know my spiritual journey, old and new, and pray me through it all that are the real blessings in my life. (Thanks Auntie. I love you!)
I can only describe this semester as being the start of scales being removed from my eyes. Honestly. It’s like I’ve change my seat and the view is so different from where I’m sitting now. It was a challenging semester, but I approached it with humility and openness which I believe helped me to not see it as burden worthy of panic. Rather, it was a step out of the darkness and into the light.
