So, What's Your Major?

I'm beginning to think alot about my future after college. Makes sense right?

A degree in Spiritual Formation is a concept that feels especially ironic to me as a senior at Wheaton College. In this culture of intellectual snobbery and obsession with progress, a degree is often used as a ticket to admiration among all the people that count the least, especially when it comes to the topic of forming one's spiritual life. If someone assumes that I am a good discipler because I have a degree in it, I’d be suspicious. After four years of studying in the university setting alongside numerous real-life experiences of spiritual formation in several different contexts such as the inner city, the Chinese-American church, and the everyday realities of friendships and enemies, I feel as if I’ve learned far more from the experiences than I have in the majority of my classes. Most would agree with me that experience is by far the best teacher, the best discipler. So at this moment in my life, something needs to be reconciled before I can move on: why did I become a C.E. major if I feel as if I could have found the same lessons, in deeper and more impacting ways, in life?

Dallas Willard is a smart man. He puts it all together in a way that helps me to admire the value this major of study in his book Renovation of the Heart. It could very well be the book that bridges the intellectual pursuit of understanding formation theory in the classroom to the knitty-gritty realities of trying to bring up inner city youth to see that Jesus hasn’t given up on them. “Understanding is the basis of care. What you would take care of you must first understand,” Willard says. Bullseye. I’m studying this stuff so I can understand it. I want to understand it because I care.

It can be supposed that Jesus didn’t care much for the current classroom setting of today either. As Willard states, Jesus was not interested in developing positive systems that could crank out the most effective number of followers in the best way. I’ve always dreaded the evangelism/discipleship models that compare the process to a shoe factory. I especially despise models that show all the multiplication. There was something much deeper in Jesus. There was the process of a real relationship with the sharing of real wounds, joys, and living. Jesus left his mark on his followers by showing his wounds, sharing his joy, and living his life with them. The renovating of one’s heart was never summed up in a step-by-step process but rather a step-by-step journey. All of this would seem to encourage me to drop out of college, seek out the lost, and build those real relationships in such a way that truly bring out the perpetual Kingdom revolution Christ preached.

A revolution isn’t something that just happens though. No, a revolution is a complicated process that involves a depth of understanding and an unnatural passion. All of a sudden dropping out of Wheaton doesn’t seem so hot an idea. I’ve got to know what I’m doing before I go out and do it. Jesus knew the plan from the start, right? He had it easy. How can I care if I do not understand? Willard looks away and draws several circles on the board, one within another, and begins to label them: soul, social, body, etc. “Here, allow me to help you understand,” he says calmly. Yes, this helps me understand more. It gives me a wonderful framework for how to understand what I am doing. But deep inside, I cannot help but feel that all this understanding is still not enough. Jesus was on to something else too. Willard is smiling as he points me to page 23, “Well informed human effort certainly is indispensable, for spiritual formation is no passive process. But Christ-likeness of the inner being is not a human attainment. It is, finally, a gift of grace.” (emphasis mine)

Experience with understanding isn’t enough either, but Jesus himself is enough, in fact, more than enough. It is God’s grace and love that is the best discipler. Both my degree and my experiences are possible because of His grace and relationship with me. I long to walk alongside others in their journey, but I must never forget Jesus must walk with me too.

In the end, it’s good that I feel and think this way. If every action springs from my heart, then perhaps my tiring of these classrooms is a sign that my time here at Wheaton is appropriately closing. I have spent good time here learning to understand, and therefore, learning to care in ways I may not have been able to before. No matter how I may want to look at it, it’s clear that the entire process has been one of grace, Jesus walking alongside me. Praise the Lord.

current state of spirit: Longing to depend on God fully in light of all that is life.. .