Tuesday is my fullest day of the week this semester, followed closely by Thursday. Both days I have back-to-back classes from 8 to 4:45, except for a break between 10:45 and 12:30. On Tuesdays I go straight to work at 5, and don’t get off until after 9.

At the beginning of the semester, I decided that break between classes would be a good time to read the Bible and pray. For the most part, that has worked out well. But in recent weeks, I’ve been finding myself using that time for homework more and more.

This Tuesday started the same way. My 9:30 class got out at 10, so I had extra time. I started out by making my equation sheet for my steel test the next day. I was going to get started on one of my two assignments due today, but for both of them I needed books I’d left at home. So then I started to work on the recording from the message on Sunday. Most of the time I can do all the processing, editing, and exporting on my iPad. But some weeks, like this week, there is a lot of noise in the recording. To clean that up, I would need my laptop, which I didn’t have with me.

It was as if God had cornered me. So I prayed, “Alright, God, checkmate…what do you want to say to me?”

I was fully expecting something about my lack of discipline, about how I needed to be better about spending time with him, about how much I’ve been drifting away and not really living for him most of the time. Or something along those lines.

Instead, he said, “I love you.”

That was it.

It started to sink in. On the one hand, I’ve been more and more distracted lately by so many things, and I haven’t been focused on God much at all. In some things, I feel like I’ve just been going through the motions, and in others, I’ve been letting them slide almost completely. On the other hand, as I’ve been realizing this recently, I’ve been beating myself up over it, and telling myself I need to do better. To the point where that’s what I expected God to say to me when I took the time to listen.

But he didn’t. He just said, “I love you.”

I realized in that moment that I’d reduced him to a religion – one that I couldn’t even keep.

He doesn’t care about how much I’m following the rules if it’s just for the sake of following the rules. He doesn’t want me to begrudgingly give him time out of my day just to check it off my list. He doesn’t want me to serve at church and be a leader and all that if it’s not an outpouring of love for him. And he doesn’t want me to strive to do better in all those areas if I’m doing it on my own strength and because it’s what I “should” do. He loves me, and he just wants me to choose to love him. Everything else flows out of that.

It’s so simple, but so easy to forget. But in spite of that, he relentlessly pursues me. Until I finally listen.

In my mind I heard the lyrics from “One Thing Remains”:

Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
Your love

And it’s higher than the mountains that I face
And it’s stronger than the power of the grave
And constant in the trial and the change
This one thing remains

And on and on and on and on it goes
Yes, it overwhelms and satisfies my soul
And I never, ever have to be afraid
This one thing remains

In death, in life
I’m confident and covered by the power of your great love
My debt is paid
There’s nothing that can separate my heart from your great love

No matter what I’m going through, no matter what I do, no matter what happens, he will never stop loving me. And he just asks me to love him back. And sometimes he needs to break through all my distractions and checkmate me to remind me of that.

Remember how I wrote that I was going to blog every week…almost two weeks ago? Oops.

Last week was spring break, and I spent most of it writing—working on my staff application for NLCF. And now I’m back, for the final stretch.

It’s ridiculous how close I am to the end of school. My graduation is May 16 and 17. So two months from now I will have graduated and will probably be on my way out of town. As I was driving back to Blacksburg on Sunday, I was remembering the last time I was riding up a winding mountain road at the end of my final spring break, with my impending graduation two months away. That was four years ago, and I was on the other side of the world then, still not even sure what the four years after that graduation would hold. I didn’t know what school I would be going to, or what it would be like when I got there. I knew I had nine short weeks left at the boarding school that had been my home for the past four and a half years. And I thought time was flying then.

At the beginning of the break my family and I had spent a few days at a retreat with a bunch of other families who were going to be leaving the country. I remember one session where we talked about transition. Then we all went off by ourselves and asked ourselves questions about the upcoming transition, and thought about what we hoped to see in the years following it. Like I said, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even know where I would be going to school yet. I just wanted God to use me, wherever I was, to make a difference in the lives of those around me.

The rest of that break I’d been at home, and I’d spent a lot of it thinking about the youth group back at school, that I was a leader of (one of maybe a dozen or so), and small groups in particular (which we led in pairs.) I had been feeling like the way small groups were being handled wasn’t as effective as it could be. I wanted them to be more closely-knit and consistent from year to year, and also to be more autonomous and less one-size-fits-all. I spent a good bit of time thinking and praying about it and drew up a rough plan for how I thought we should reorganize youth group to meet these goals. When I pitched it to the other youth group leaders after break, they didn’t really jump on it. My co-leader was completely on board, as he’d had the same concerns as me. A couple others liked the idea. But most didn’t see anything wrong with the way small groups were going. To be fair, our group was pretty different from the others just because of how the two of us led and who was in it. That’s part of why I was pushing for more autonomy, so we could have more freedom to lead our group better. The other groups didn’t really need this as much. The other leaders agreed to give it a shot though, for a few weeks, and see how it went. Unfortunately, it was so close to the end of the year, and so much was going on, that we only had youth group a few times before grad, and my plan never really got off the ground. I don’t know what happened to it after I left, but my guess is when they came back the next fall to start again, with me gone, they defaulted to the way things had always been done. Interestingly though, the Engage Groups we have at NLCF are similar in a lot of ways to my vision of small groups in high school.

Fast forward to this break. It’s been a lot of looking back and looking forward. I spent the first couple days backpacking with a group from NLCF. It was cold, but fun. Last time I was on a backpacking trip was in high school, so doing it again brought back those memories. We shared testimonies around the campfire, and I talked about my boarding school and my spiritual growth there. Of course it came up that I’d lived overseas, so then I went through that whole explanation to everyone who didn’t already know that. And looking ahead, another guy who was on the trip is applying to go on staff, so the two of us talked a lot about the application and about training and support raising, which are just around the corner after grad.

The rest of break I was with my parents, and I spent most of my free time working on the application. Parts of it were writing about my past—my journey to faith, experiences and individuals that influenced my life and spiritual growth, my calling to ministry. Most of these answers were from my boarding school years, at least in part. The other side of it was a lot of looking forward, thinking a lot about support raising and finances, and beyond that, to my expectations of my role as staff.

So all of this was swirling around in my head as I drove back to Blacksburg, Unlike four years ago, I was the one driving, and I was alone with my thoughts for a good seven hours. And my thoughts turned a lot to the nine weeks I have left. I still remember when I first noticed this phenomenon of each year going faster than the one before it. That was back in seventh grade. Since I’ve been in college, I’ve discovered that it isn’t a linear increase. The rate of acceleration is actually increasing. By the time I got to my senior year…man. I don’t even know what happened to the first half of this semester. The second half will be over in the blink of an eye. In the fall, all I could think about was graduating. But now it’s a little overwhelming how fast it’s coming, and maybe I’m not quite ready to leave just yet. I mean, yes, I can’t wait to be out of school. And I won’t exactly miss selling pizza. And the sooner I start raising support, the sooner I can come back to Blacksburg. But the reality is sinking in that I will still have to leave for a while, even if I am coming back. I’ll have to leave my Engage Group and my NLCF family. And I have friends who will be graduating or moving and won’t be here when I get back. And I will miss the pizza. This will be more bittersweet than I thought it would be.

So I’m praying for these less-than-nine weeks left. Sixty days, actually. Praying that I won’t miss them. That God would give me wisdom as I choose how to spend what little time I have left. That my time left with my Engage Group is good, and that God would continue to prepare them to carry on under new leadership. And that God would be preparing me to step—more like launch—into the next chapter of my life.

(I was going to make this short. I couldn’t do it.)

So Lent began today. I knew I’d neglected this blog a lot recently, but I just discovered that I’ve only posted twice since last Lent. What happened to the past year?

Anyways, for the past week, I’ve been thinking about what to do this year. This is only the second year that I’m actually observing Lent. It wasn’t until I came to NLCF that I knew much about it or realized that it was commonly observed outside of Catholic circles. I think it’s really valuable though. Actually, I read a really good blog post by Eugene Cho today that explains that value really well, and also voices something that’s been on my mind this past week – that doing it just for the sake of doing it is worthless and empty. The value comes from wanting to intentionally seek God in it and let him transform you through it. From surrendering your life to him. I haven’t watched the video yet (yet – I want to in the next couple days, when I get a chance.) But it’s really worth a read. Seriously, go read it and then come back.

I read another blog post last week about ways to think outside the box about fasting for Lent. This one is from a Catholic perspective, so some of the ideas aren’t as applicable to non-Catholics, but most of it is. I like to think outside the box, so this article helped get the wheels turning for me some. I think the key takeaway that shaped my thinking about Lent this year is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be giving something up, the way Lent is traditionally. It could also be taking something up – choosing to intentionally do something for Lent.

So what I’ve come up with this year is two-part. The first part is based on a couple of the suggestions in that second article I mentioned. I’m going to stop watching movies or TV shows on my own, except on Sundays. This semester I’ve been watching a lot of movies and TV in the evenings (not actually on TV, but on my iPad.) I want to spend that time reading – and at least some of that reading material to be spiritual content. To explain those two qualifiers – I think watching things with others is different. It’s about spending time with other people, not just how I choose to spend my own time.

As for Sundays, it turns out they’re not actually part of Lent at all. I discovered the other day that there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter (I hadn’t actually counted them before.) At first, I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t adding up to 40. After doing a little research, I was reassured that I really can count (at least to 46) and discovered that it’s actually supposed to be like that. There are six Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Excluding these leaves 40 days. Apparently when Lent was extended to 40 days a few hundred years after Christ, they decided Sunday wouldn’t count because it was a feast day, to celebrate the Resurrection. So fasting (remember when fasting was about food?) was kept to the other six days, and the season of Lent actually ended up being 46 days long. (This is probably all explained in that video that I haven’t watched yet. And some of you probably knew this already. It was news to me.) I’d heard that sometimes people (in the present day) don’t count Sundays, but I didn’t know that this is why. Anyways, so when I was thinking about my own fast, I decided to follow this too. Not because it’s “right” or “more traditional”, but because I feel like in my case one day a week is a healthy limit, and this isn’t something I feel the need to go cold turkey on.

The second part is to revive this blog some. I’m going to commit to posting weekly through the period of Lent about something God has been showing me. My hope is that this will make me slow down and actually pay attention to things God might be trying to teach me, that I miss when I’m caught up in life most of the time. And hopefully the extra reading I’m doing will contribute to this. They probably won’t be long posts. Part of what keeps me from blogging so much of the time is that my posts tend to be upwards of 1000 or even 1500 words and take me hours to write and edit before finally publishing them. So to start a post is to commit a significant chunk of my time to it. I think keeping them to 300–500 words will make them a little more manageable.

I’ll kick off those posts with one either Friday or early next week. We’ll see how God works in me over the next forty-six days.

A couple weeks ago we started a series at NLCF on Galatians. For this series, during the last worship set of each service, there’s an opportunity for people to have someone pray for them. The first Sunday of the series, my Engage Group was one of the groups on the so-called HUG (hospitality/ushers/greeters) team, who folds bulletins before the service, greets people as they arrive, and takes up offering. Before the service, the HUG leader asked if anyone on the HUG team would be willing to join some of the staff at the back of the auditorium during the last set, to be available to pray for people.

Maybe it was because over the past two years, I’ve conditioned myself to volunteer to help out at NLCF however I can. Maybe it was because the Holy Spirit decided to override my decision-making at that moment. Probably a combination of both. Either way, I volunteered without even thinking about it. It was actually a few moments later that I even realized what had just happened. As if, for those few moments, something external actually had stepped in and made the decision for me. I’m glad though. Otherwise, I inevitably would have wavered and and maybe chickened out.

I got to pray for two people, neither of whom I’d ever met before. I stumbled through both prayers, grasping for words. But both of them appreciated it. And I was really glad for the opportunity to be able to pray for them.

It reminded me of high school, especially junior and senior year, when prayer was so much more a part of my life than it has been recently. Especially prayer for other people. I had close friends who came to me in their darkest moments, because they knew they could trust me to stand by them and fight for them in prayer, with faith and with power. God gave me that faith and that warrior’s spirit to be that person for those who needed it. (In fact, one of the people I prayed for Sunday reminded me a lot of a good friend in high school who was going through something very similar. They even said a lot of the same things.)

But that part of me was one of the casualties of my own dark night of the soul, during my first year of college. And though, more than two years later, I’ve largely recovered from that time, this is one area that still needs to be resurrected. But since that Sunday, I’ve been getting the sense that this is what God wants to resurrect next. In fact, I’ve been realizing that prayer is central to the growth I’ve been wanting to see in myself in many different areas. Just today I realized just how central, and how it ties all these areas together. But to explain that, let me back up again.

This semester I’ve started discipling two other guys in NLCF, a junior who is also an Engage Group leader, and a sophomore who is also very involved in NLCF. Our first discipleship meeting, maybe four weeks ago, we shared our backgrounds and then each shared about how we sensed God wanted us to grow, and what we could each do to move in that direction. We each shared different things, but over the next couple weeks, as we continued to reflect on what God was doing and what our next steps were, all three of us began to converge on prayer. We all came to the conclusions that the way forward in each of our situations was through praying more.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that we should take some time to focus on prayer—digging more into what it means to pray, how we can be more effective or diligent in it, and so on. So this past Monday, we studied a hexagon.

Allow me to explain. NLCF uses shapes a lot as a tool to help convey and understand Biblical truths in an understandable and memorable way. These shapes are actually developed by a ministry called 3DM, where NLCF gets a lot of ministry concepts and resources, especially for discipleship. There are eight shapes—a circle, semicircle, triangle, square…all the way up to an octagon. The hexagon looks at the Lord’s Prayer, as given in Matthew 6:9-13. (I’m quoting from the NLT, which is why it’s a little more contemporary than what we’re used to reciting in church. Also, notice that the last line, “For yours/thine is the Kingdom…” is not actually in Scripture. That is, it was not in older, more reliable manuscripts, and so it is not included in modern translations. This was added in later manuscripts and incorporated into our church traditions through translations like the KJV. Not that there’s anything wrong with that part, but the hexagon is based on what modern translations agree on.)

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

This is broken into six parts, represented by the six sides of the hexagon. Jesus gave this to the disciples, and to us, as a model for our prayers. So 3DM boiled it down to these six ideas, and recommend using the six ideas as a starting point for our prayers. There’s no one way to do it, although they give a couple ideas, but the idea is that the six points together make for a well-rounded approach to prayer.

Like I said at the beginning, I’ve been realizing that prayer is central to all the ways I’ve been feeling like I need to grow, especially in light of my decision to go on staff with NLCF. It was yesterday as I was praying that it really clicked, when I realized how the hexagon really ties together all three areas. So here are the six parts and how they relate to where I see myself right now. (The headings are the names given to each side by 3DM.)

Character

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy. (v. 9)

The first part of is really just starting by remembering who God is and what our relationship is to him. He’s our “Abba”, daddy. We can approach him as his sons and daughters. He’s in heaven, on the throne, in charge. And he’s holy—as we are trying to be, as he is transforming us to be.

What really jumps out at me is that, even so he is so much greater than us, and holy, and our King, we have this relationship with him. We can approach him as princes and princesses. As his children. He made a way for us to live in intimate relationship with him. And that’s what prayer is—approaching the throne, talking to him, listening to him. Hanging out with him. But how often does it feel like a chore? Something I try to work into my routine because it’s what a good Christian should do?

One of the things about being a college student is that any routine you get into gets reset every four months. Which for the most part I’m fine with. I’m usually not a fan of routine anyways. But sometimes there’s something to be said for routine. This is one area where the routine is really helpful to keep me in the habit. But every semester I have a different schedule and I’m back at Square One in trying to set aside time. And as it starts getting busy, between homework, tests, group projects, my job, and my responsibilities for NLCF, I have less and less control over my time, and I’m reading the Bible less and praying less.

What I need is more than routine. I need to desire to spend time with God. If I really want to do it, I’ll make it happen. And if it really sunk in that I have the opportunity to talk to the holy God who created the universe and who died for me—anytime I want—why wouldn’t I want to make time for it?

Kingdom

May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven. (v. 10)

So God is in heaven, and he is King. In heaven his reign is absolute, and his will is always carried out. But here on earth is a different story. While he is the rightful King, “the world around us is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). And while, ultimately, God is sovereign and is in control, he has allowed evil to take control of the world. But not completely. When Jesus came to earth he announced the coming of the Kingdom of God. Not in the distant future, as foreseen by the prophets of old, but right then. It was near. It was breaking in—into the world that Satan controlled. It is still breaking in. And we are agents of this Kingdom. We are tasked with advancing it. But we aren’t alone. God’s will is for his Kingdom to be fully realized on earth, and Jesus made it clear that when we pray within God’s will, God will move. For whatever reason, he has given us this power. He wants to partner with us in bringing about the Kingdom. Although he is fully capable of bringing about his will all on his own, he has chosen to act within our prayers.

So prayer is talking to God as our dad, and it is also asking him as his agents to move in our actions and advance his Kingdom on earth.

This is a major part of what God is calling me back to—to pray for coming of the Kingdom. All aspects of it. To pray for the Gospel to be preached and for it to transform the lives of those around me, and across the world. And to pray for the renewal of all things—the healing of the brokenness in the lives around me, and the brokenness of the world. And not just to pray for these things, but to do my part to bring them about.

Provision

Give us today the food we need, (v. 11)

Or, as many translations have it, “Give us today our daily bread.”

God is our Father and our King, and also our Provider. In this same chapter, Jesus goes on to give his famous passage about God’s provision for the birds and the flowers. He concludes:

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Matthew 6:31-34

We need to remember that God has our backs. We need to depend on him and trust him to provide.

For me, my problem isn’t worry so much as getting into the mindset that I can handle life on my own. I don’t worry enough, in that sense. Because it’s when I do start to get stressed about things that I remember that I can’t do it, but God can. This is something God’s been prodding me about recently. Especially in my leadership roles at NLCF. Too easily I start going through the motions. I forget to be leading from God’s power. There have been times this semester where I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone a bit. Which is good, because it reminds me to rely on God, and to remember that he’s the one leading. My job is just to let him use me. This is true in my classes too. It’s when my homework and projects start piling up and push me to the point where I don’t see how I’m gonna pull it all off that I remember it’s not me who needs to pull it off.

So when I pray, I need to reaffirm my dependence on God. I need to give him each of the things I’m doing, and remember that my ability to do it comes from him. And when everything seems to be ready to come crashing down, I need to ask him for the strength to keep going.

Forgiveness

and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us. (v. 12)

There was a time, early in my walk with God, that I thought I had it all together, more or less. I don’t think I would have admitted this. I don’t think I even thought that I thought this. (Does that sentence even make sense?) I knew I wasn’t perfect. I knew I made mistakes, and I knew there were one or two areas that especially needed some work. But other than that, I figured I was more or less OK. But over the years, I’ve come to see more and more that I really do have a ways to go. God continues to show me just how many aspects of my life really need a lot of work. Sometimes it gets really frustrating that I still need so much work. And that, instead of improving, I just keep realizing that I’m even more messed up than I thought I was.

So when I read this verse, I realize that I think I have an easier time forgiving others than forgiving myself. Just as I need to live in God’s strength, I need to live in God’s grace. I need to remember that he’s my Savior, too. He paid the price 2000 years ago, knowing full well how broken and sinful I would be. This is another one of those things that I intellectually know, but it doesn’t always sink in, and I don’t always live like it. I need to keep coming back to this, and keep reminding myself of the magnitude of the grace that was shown to me.

Guidance

And don’t let us yield to temptation, (v. 13a)

Or, “Lead us not into temptation.” This follows close on the heels of the last part—not just in the order Jesus prayed them in, but the idea itself. It balances it. Jesus didn’t stop at dying to offer us forgiveness. He rose again to offer us new life. He promises to transform us. And while the transformation won’t be complete until we die or he comes back, it started the moment we said “Yes” to him. There is a spiritual shift in our hearts, and we die to sin. (We read Romans 6 in Engage Group on Thursday. Paul lays out this whole idea in that chapter.) The Holy Spirit moves in and starts his work in us. We may not always see the transformation, but we can trust that it’s happening.

So just as I pray for God’s will to be done on earth, I pray for it to be done in me. For him to continue to chip away at my sin. As I draw closer to him and let him work in me, temptation will begin to lose its power. And while I can do things to facilitate God’s work in me, it is only his power that can bring about this transformation.

Protection

but rescue us from the evil one. (v. 13b)

I’ve touched on this already here and there, but it’s time to address it directly. We have an enemy. He seeks to disrupt our relationship with God as our Father. He sabotaged it at the very beginning, when Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden. He convinced them to rebel against a holy God, severing that relationship. And in that moment, God’s will was was no longer perfectly realized on earth. Instead, the enemy established himself as the prince of this world, in defiance of the King. And as for us—the children of God created in God’s image—Satan will stop at nothing to claim us for his own. Just as he did with Eve, he convinces us that God’s holding out on us. That we need to take matters into our own hands. Make our own bread. He leads us astray, convincing us that we can find our fulfillment in everything but God. And then he turns around and points out our guilt, accusing us to the point of despair. And sometimes, he just flat-out attacks us.

We need to take him seriously. I need to take him seriously. I talked about my time in high school, praying for friends in their darkest moments. This might sound weird or creepy, but more often than not, those prayers were desperate battles against the forces of hell (told you.) Admittedly, I might have been too obsessed with the whole spiritual warfare thing at times. And these days, I seem to have swung too far in the other direction, not giving it much thought at all. But there has to be a balance. Because when I think of those times, there’s no doubt in my mind that the enemy is real and he is powerful. There’s no other explanation for the things my friends and I experienced. Jesus dealt the decisive blow when he died and rose again, but the enemy isn’t vanquished yet.

I think a key difference between my high school days and now is location. His strategy in this part of the world, where people pride themselves on rationality and skepticism, seems to be one of subtlety. (This is entirely based on my own experience and observation. I have no theological or Biblical argument to back this up.) When most people don’t give much credit to the supernatural, he can be more effective by allowing them to believe he doesn’t exist. Even believers, who would agree that the supernatural is real, are influenced by the culture around them and fall into a tendency of living from day to day as if it isn’t. Since I’ve been here, I have too. I think what it really comes down to is that we believe in God and his angels, but we think of them as being up in heaven. And we believe in Satan and his demons, but assume they’re in hell. We aren’t as comfortable with the idea that angels and demons are among us, here on earth, mostly unseen, but active and powerful.

In other parts of the world, that’s not the case. Where I grew up, religion, culture, and everyday life are completely intertwined. The supernatural is taken for granted the way the absence of it is here. The way they think of it might be different, seeing it through the lenses of their own beliefs, but they believe it’s there and has an impact on their day-to-day lives. The veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is much thinner. The enemy’s tactics are far more overt in those parts of the world. And here we were, a Christian school in the middle of this. So believe me when I say I have felt the presence of angels and demons, and experienced clashes between them firsthand—including direct attacks on my friends and on me. And it was in this situation that God called me to be a warrior. Like I said at the beginning, my friends came to me in the midst of the onslaught because they knew that God had given me the faith to stand by them and face the enemy, trusting in God’s power, even when their attackers turned their attacks on me.

I know this probably sounds weird/creepy/crazy to many of you. I’ve never shared what I just shared so publicly before. I don’t think I’ve talked about it at all since coming back to the US. But I risk sounding out of my mind because I think it needs to be said. And I’ve said far more about this section than any of the others not because I think it’s more important than them. There was a time when my prayers were maybe too heavily weighted in this area. And like I said, I think I’ve swung too far in the other direction since coming back to the US. But remembering those times, I’m realizing that it needs to become a part of my lens again. It needs to become a part of my prayers again. With balance. I think either extreme is a bad place to be. There’s a danger of acting like he doesn’t exist, or is insignificant and powerless. But if that doesn’t work, he’s content getting us to focus way too much on him—and not on Jesus. In the model Jesus gave us, we acknowledge the evil one and pray against his attacks, with a healthy balance alongside the rest of the prayer. I’ve written far more about this side of the hexagon not because it’s more important, but because I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for most of my readers to buy into the first five sides. This side will probably take some convincing.

So there it is. This ended up being a pretty good sized essay. What’s really cool is that I’d been thinking about each of these things independently of each other. They were all things that I’d been thinking about and felt like I needed to focus on. And I was starting to get the sense that they were all interconnected, and that the starting point for change in all of them was prayer—developing that connection with God and allowing my relationship with him to flourish. To let growth in all of these areas come out of that relationship. As Jesus said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

And then we went and studied the hexagon, and suddenly, everything clicked.

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. In fact, last time I posted was early in the spring semester, which turned out to be my busiest semester since starting at Virginia Tech. Thanks to God and God alone, I not only survived the semester with my sanity intact (well, mostly…) but it was academically my best semester yet. Actually, it was a really good semester across the board, busy as it was. I also got an internship in the DC area over the summer, building a database system for a residential builder to improve their workflow and the flow of data—from subcontractor bids, to analysis of the bids, to award documents, to a historical cost database, and finally to budgets for new jobs. I really enjoyed the job, and they really appreciated my work. So it was a great experience for all of us. And now I’m back in Blacksburg, and classes have started up again—and it’s the beginning of my senior year.

It’s hard to believe how fast my time has flown here, and how far I’ve come in three short years. Now for fourth and goal. (Excuse the analogy—after all, it’s football season again. (Go Hokies!) Anyways…) Before I know it, my last year as a Virginia Tech student will be done. And then…then what?

That’s actually what I’ve come back to my blog to write about. Because notice what I didn’t say. I didn’t say my last year at Virginia Tech.

If you’ve followed my blog much, you’ll know I’ve shared a lot about my church family here, New Life Christian Fellowship. I’ve shared about how I and a group of NLCF-ers have been building relationships with international students, helping them adjust to America and find a place here, and showing them the love of God. And I’ve shared about how God’s brought me from being a lost and lonely international student, to finding my place at Virginia Tech, and finding a family I love in NLCF.

So when, last fall, I and maybe a dozen other student leaders were invited to an interest meeting about going on staff with NLCF, it got me thinking. Thinking about how, of all the things that fill my schedule, the stuff I do with NLCF is the stuff I most want to be spending my time doing (and I get really frustrated with everything else for taking time away from that.) Thinking about how the stuff I and my Engage Group (that group I mentioned) are doing for international students is making such a difference in their lives, and how I’ve seen God moving in their lives through their interactions with us. Thinking about how my Engage Group, the NLCF staff, and so many others at NLCF have become my family, and how, because of them, Blacksburg has become home.

The point I’m getting to is this: after almost a year of thinking, talking, and praying, and listening to God and to other people, I’ve decided to apply to go on staff at NLCF.

The funny thing is that this is both really surprising and not at all. Not surprising because ministry of some sort has always been the direction I’ve been heading. Before I decided, almost four years ago, to get a degree in engineering, I already wanted to go into ministry. And engineering was only ever going to be a channel for that. But what blows my mind is the fact that I’m choosing to stay in Blacksburg to do it. The plan was always to go overseas somewhere—whether back to where I grew up, or elsewhere. Staying in the States was never the plan. But then, God’s never been too concerned with making sure all our petty little plans work out. Not that he doesn’t want us to be happy, or doesn’t have our best interests in mind. He absolutely has our best interests in mind. He knows better than we do how our gifts and passions can be used, and he has something so much bigger and better in mind than anything any one of us can dream up. A greater plan that we get to be a part of. An epic story that we get to play a role in. And over the past year, I’m starting to see where the next chapter is set for me.

So over the course of this year I’ll be going through the application process—some paperwork, a couple of (very personal) interviews, getting references. If I’m accepted, I’ll go to new staff training in June, and after that will start raising support. (Because this is a church for broke college students, all the staff raise support to be here.) When I reach 100% support, I’ll be officially released to come back to Blacksburg and start serving here full time.

It’s impossible to anticipate everything I’d be doing on staff. It involves wearing a lot of hats. But it will probably include the things I’ve been doing and enjoy doing—discipling, running sound for services and serving in other technical ways, and working with international students. Right now, we are just one of several Engage Groups at NLCF (10 this year.) Several of us in the group see what we’re doing as a really important part of NLCF (not that the other Engage Groups aren’t important) with the potential to expand beyond just an Engage Group and become a more full-fledged ministry of NLCF to the international community at Virginia Tech. On staff, I would be in a position to spearhead this ministry.

When I shared this with my Engage Group, one of them asked how long I planned to be on staff. My co-leader took the words right out of my mouth: “Until God calls him somewhere else.” I could definitely get comfortable here, and stay for many years to come. But I could just as easily start getting restless after a couple years. My biggest hangup the whole time I was weighing this decision was my desire to go overseas. Like I said, my plan had always been to go overseas again. A piece of my heart is still on the other side of the globe, and it was really, really hard to give that up. In the end, I had to tell myself that I wasn’t. I still have plenty of time (I think) to go back someday. And someday, maybe I will.

That said, the really cool thing is that I can have an impact on the nations from right here in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech draws young people from all over the world. Dozens of countries are represented at this university. From here, I can reach out to these people from across the globe. And when their time here is done, and they go back to each of their countries, they in turn can reach people there. So even if I stay here, I can still live out that calling to the nations. That’s a really cool thought.

Two short years ago, I never would have guessed I would be making this decision. In fact, if you had told me that I would still be living in Blacksburg after I graduate, I might have just broken down crying. Or flat-out not believed you. And yet here I am. It says a lot about this church, and my Engage Group, who are my family. I thank God so much for them. And most of all, it is a testament to God and his faithfulness.

I’ve quoted it before on this blog, but Third Day’s “Mountain of God” is such a great song, and has become somewhat of a theme song for me (among a few others.) The bridge gets me every time, and comes back to me now:

Sometimes I think of where it is I’ve come from
And the things I’ve left behind
But of all I’ve had, and what I’ve possessed, nothing can quite compare
With what’s in front of me