The Undercurrent

un·der·cur·rent: noun
1 : a current below the upper currents or surface
2 : a hidden opinion, feeling, or tendency often contrary to the one publicly shown

Lately I have been trying to figure out why the heck God has called me to seminary. When I am honest with myself, I have to admit that every day of class and every assignment feel more like a chore than a privilege. I don't want to feel this way, but I can't shake it. I love the rest of my life, for the most part. I feel so thankful to be able to invest time in relationships with teenagers and share Christ's love with them, but I'm counting down the days til May, 2010 when I can hang up my homework for good...when I can read a book for pleasure...when I'm done pulling all nighters writing papers.

Yet even while I'm in this place of unrest, I know God is up to something deep inside of me. A recent common theme in my heart and conversations has been a fresh desire to uncover who I am apart from people’s perception of me. Even writing this post arouses questions in me of how I’ll be perceived. I don’t want to be a slave to a façade. I want to know myself, who I am in Christ, and live true to that despite public opinion. I wonder if God has me here, in this season of life, to teach me more than Greek or Theology. I wonder if what I'm really here to learn is who He made me to be.

"I have come to believe that, by and large, the human family all has the same secrets. Which are both very telling and very important to tell. Telling, in the sense that they reveal the central paradox of our condition….that what we hunger for (more than anything else) is to be fully known, and yet that is often what we fear more than anything else (being fully known).
Yet they are important to tell, because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we are. And come to accept, instead, the highly-edited version we show the world, in hopes that the world will find the edited version more acceptable than the real thing."
-Frederick Buechner