I often run into situations where I'm like...what the heck God?! Why would You give me these visions...these ministries, these directives...why would you give me such things, if not for me to serve You better? CCF is very much a ministry of people; people with physical illnesses, people with emotional stresses, people with spiritual slumps. People who needs time for you to walk and talk with them, to pray and stand with. This ministry of inreach is important to me, yet I often find myself devoting time to my academics (because I can't just sit down and just get the material)...or logistics/paperwork (stupid Jobmine...), or any number of other things (time-consuming prelab/lab/postlab comes to mind), instead of devoting my time to tending to people (or CCF serving in general).
And each time when I want to serve in something, but unable to, due to school strains and whatnot...I ask...why can't You just give me the intelligence to understand my school stuff? Give me the words to fill in my lab report. Arrange my work term and whatnot so I don't have to worry about it at all...so I can go perform my calling? Inherent in this, two struggle arises: one is trusting God with my academics...the other is complaining about my inadequacies.
God in my school life
Waterloo 3A Electrical Engineering is easily the most painful term in my academic career. My professors didn't speak English well. The courses were difficult. Lab work took a while to archive. Yet, I took up the role of Winter Retreat coordination, my most stressful CCF serving position ever. After surviving a close brush with PDENG and midterms, I proceeded to serve as Grad Video coordinator. By the time I hit finals, I was rather behind. I crammed like mad and...
...somehow, made it through.
I rank among the people whom, if you asked me to perform a vector field integral, or calculate Bayer probability, or figure out the dopant concentration in some silicon sample, I can't do it. I honestly can't tell you how I pull off the marks I do, just that I do. At the end of each term, as I check my QUEST, I'm convinced that the only reason I get those marks is cuz He lets me.
Judges is a interesting book, with many colourful heroes. In its pages, it tells of how Israelites receives guidance and protection...just to forget God a few generations later. Then they get attacked and owned...and in their cries, God raises a leader to see them through things. I've always laughed at the Israelites...I mean, seriously. It's obviously God at work here. Why don't you guys get it?
Seriously.
But I've realized I'm the same. Each passing term, during finals, I'm scared witless. Yet I get through. A few month later, I find myself in the same position again, unwilling to trust Him that school will turn out okay. The Israelites held out for a few generations. I held out for a few weeks.
His grace is sufficient
So what about these weaknesses? What can't You just...give me all I need? It's all for Your Kingdom anyway, no?
I am a 21-year-old university student. My ministry reach at the moment is not even comparable to Paul. All I've got is CCF. Paul had 7+ churches. In a letter to the Corinthians, he mentions a few things similar to the stuff I'm moaning about right now:
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh ... Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me...And that's about the time where God said "too bad. =P"... If Paul's ministries were less effective because of this thorn...God didn't seem to care all that much. Because if His goal was solely to advance His kingdom, then He would've "taken it away from him". But His goal isn't just to advance His kingdom, is it?
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