Finally got what I came for...

The first week of May, 2001, I graduated on a Friday from Reformed Bible College, a little college of 300 or so students, now renamed "Kuyper College" as if that's easier for a person to grasp the meaning of the name...Anyways, for a week I lived on the floor of an empty room with all my stuff in boxes in a house with some guys. During that week I was still making calls to Orlando, trying to figure out where I was going to live. I knew only one person in Orlando at the time and he was way to busy with five kids plus a full load of Seminary classes to take time to help me out. But God worked it out. For $200 a month, I'd stay in an 8 x 11 room in a house with a 70 year old cigar smoking guy, as well as his huge black lab, and a fellow RTS student from Taiwan who was up in the morning at 5:00 every day for prayer and studied until late at night on a stomach full of boiled chicken feet.

So I brought my 20 boxes of books, some of them weighing in at 65 lbs, to the closest UPS store in Grand Rapids--it took two loads since I only had a compact car, and cost about $550. One week after graduating college, I embarked on the longest drive I'd ever made in my life. I packed my Ford Festiva with no air conditioning to the gills. I mean, you could not have possibly fit another thing in there except in my lap. I arrived in Orlando, the next day after staying Chattanooga overnight, settled in and found a job as a meat cutter at Publix, and started my seminary education.

I know I'm skipping a TON, that maybe I'll cover some time, but fast foward. Now it's May 2007, six years later. I finally got to walk down the aisle at commencement. Problem was, when they handed me the diploma booklet, it was empty. I still had one more course to do. Over the past two years I had been doing course week through the RTS virtual campus (a great way to do seminary...). I still had to take the "Pastoral and Social Ethics" course. Well, today, finally, and not without some painful forcing myself to do it, I finished the last RTS course. I finished writing this stupid paper that's been hanging over my head for three weeks. I had to do it or the Seminary was going to put me on the December grad list (oooo, big deal....) Mostly the motivation came from within, just being tired of reading or writing or memorizing because I HAVE to. From now on, all continuing education will be stuff I WANT to read or listen to. AND, with my fingers crossed that I haven't failed the ethics course, I can finally say, "I have completed my graduate education!"

In the few short weeks I've been in full time ministry I find myself completely unprepared in a few things, but not in others. Seminary was definitely beneficial, but the education certainly has not stopped. In many ways, its just starting. Now starts on the job training, like when I listened to a church friend talk to me about his marriage that was breaking up and he didn't know what else could possibly be done. Hmmm...well the historico-redemptive-covenantal theological model tells us that....Nope. Forget that crap. How about, "God hates divorce. Period."

Could have said that before I even started RTS. But at least now I got some credentials. And maybe next time I'll write from the other perspective and talk about how valuable my theological education has been. Just thought I'd try telling a story this time. Fun huh?