[Cover picture - proof of life for the SMUCF staff team]
Dear gospel partners,
We've made it through one year!!!
Thank you for your support in prayer, in friendship, in encouragement and admonishment, and in finances too. I am still amazed that I'm paid to read and to tell others what I see in the Bible.
As I was reflecting on the past year of work in SMUCF, Jesus' words about the kingdom of God has particularly resonated.
Mark 4:26-29 (ESV)
²⁶And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. ²⁷He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. ²⁸The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
As Jesus taught all about the word, he wanted his disciples to see that even if the gospel faces a significant rejection rate, in the end, the kingdom is sure to grow and expand, even if we don't know how.
True to the word, I don't know how, but I've seen the word work in my own heart, in people around me and in the students in CF. I particularly noticed that I'm growing to trust that the gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection is what I need to turn to when I struggle between keeping in step with the Spirit and gratifying the pleasures of the flesh. And that has also grown my confidence in Jesus' good Lordship over this world, which has helped me to surrender more things outside my control to God. Learning that I'm right with God in Christ has helped me to let go more and more the need to always be right myself, and to live within my limitations of knowledge and understanding.
It's also been wonderful to see one of my 121s keep fighting to trust the gospel, to wake up believing that he is forgiven rather than having to be sorry enough and to find joy in that. My 121 in 1 John has been a joy also as we soaked in the amazing love that we could be assured of because of our 'family likeness'. I must say that it was one thing to believe that God's word is sufficient, and it's a special privilege to also be experientially more convinced of it.
[This guy decided which book to study by a spin the wheel :p but God is sovereign and it is a book we are finding very timely]
As we wrapped up GGs I am particularly thankful for my most prayerful semester as a GGL yet, and I think that has been my greatest joy in ministry so far. It's wonderfully freeing to experientially know that I have, in Piper's words, a "war time walkie-talkie to call in firepower" and that so much of what we worry about are things that God delights to do through our prayer.
God answered prayers like bringing someone who was feeling distant to being excited about the gospel again, or growing a member in trusting God's word more. The sense is indeed being overwhelmed at how eager God is to answer our prayers in line with his will, and that actually much of what I would normally trust myself to navigate through conversations or other means are things that I can trust God to do the heavy lifting instead.
Even amidst the joys, the greatest challenge has been feeding on and applying God's word personally. I think it's inevitable to associate opening the Bible at QT with work, and to begin to read the passage with a work lens, thinking about how I would explain or apply this passage to someone else. Ironically as I learnt more to dig deeper into Scripture and to preach it, I had been neglecting to teach myself and dig in for myself. Ultimately, the deficit came from a mistaken assumption that Word ministry was about teaching others well, when in reality Word ministry really falls on how well the minister knows and lives in the word. Why? The teaching of the Word is really about showing people Christ, and I can't show Christ unless I know Christ robustly and deeply. And I guess the challenge really is not that it's hard but that it's easily neglected by the wayside. Much like prayer, it's the things that nobody sees that can be easily compensated for in the short run but really show up in its deficit years later. What has helped in this time is embracing hymns to meditate on Scriptural truths and listening to sermon recordings online, and letting that keep me eager to know Scripture, study it and apply it to myself.
So yeah if this year had a main lesson, and if next year has a main purpose, it would be to prayerfully go long on God's word. To keep seeking to know all of Scripture, to have my thought and prayer life wrapped up in it, and to have all of life shaped by it. I found reflecting on this in John 15 helpful as to how to do this: If we want to remain in Jesus, we will want to listen to what Jesus says and we will want to talk to him often. We will find that his words are on our minds all the time. The problem for most of us is that we're trying to have a conversation with Jesus while standing next to the main loudspeaker at a rock concert. The noise is so much that we can hardly concentrate! That speaker might be our phones, our work, our worries, or even other relationships in our life. But if we want to remain in Jesus, we need to turn down the speaker so we can hear what Jesus has to say.
As I go into the next year, these are things you can pray for me!
- Pray that I will keep prioritizing knowing Christ through Scripture. That I will be guarded from seeing other things as more important or efficient, and that I will treasure and guard the time I have to enjoy God through his word.
- Pray for wisdom and clarity I begin thinking about what I might do after the 2nd year ends. Currently on the table it's either going into a secular job or going to seminary
- Pray for excitement and love for the y1s who will join SMUCF, I do feel the slightest hint of a dreading talking to another batch of Y1s, some of whom will end up deciding to prioritize the world
- Pray for provision for student leaders for SMUCF! We are feeling a shrinking amount of people who can commit.
- Pray for wisdom in encouraging students to think Christianly about their priorities in school, the internship cold war is starting to be in full swing and people are actively trying to max out the internship experience and duration!
- Pray for continued insight as I write my talks in Genesis for SUPer Tuesday!
I do genuinely struggle with checking in on all of you, but I want to hear how you've been doing and so feel free to shoot me a quick update text/prayer requests or arrange coffee/meal! I'm probably a bit more free in July until school starts!