Friday, March 23, 2012

So, spring break has begun. We reached the end of the 2nd quarter of our school, and now I'm headed to Denver for a week to see my brother and relax a little bit before jumping into the prophets, before the soon-coming end of the school in June. I will certainly miss the school and the people here, but I am ready to go home, at least for a little while.

The quarter has been a struggle. The work hasn't been a problem, and doing a lot of work has never really been an issue. But emotionally, spiritually, and mentally (non-worked based) has been one of if not the most draining experience of my life. I spent so much of the quarter with so much uncertainty, whether it was in regards to certain theological issues, or uncertainty regarding what was going to come after this school. It's been a long, arduous time, but one I am grateful for both to have gone through, and now feel that I am coming out of slowly. I feel as though this time has humbled me, that it has stripped me of what little knowledge I possessed and what few certainties I had, and made me start to reestablish myself inside of God. Pieces of me have been broken, or rebroken I guess, and now I am starting to be pieced back together a little bit.

I feel as though a lot of this stemmed from what I was going to do after my SBS. Coming into this school, I felt like God had laid out some very clear steps for where he wanted me to head, and how I was going to get there. SBS was the first step, and then some time at home to give back out of everything I have learned over the last year and a half, before getting into some more leadership and teaching based schools, and seeing what came from that. But somewhere during the school, the idea of staffing SBS schools started to sound very appealing, and after some random comments from other staff thinking that I would be a good fit, I started to lean toward that. I got an application, and filled it out, but I never quite felt right about handing in it. Around this time, the idea of Titus (a teaching school that follows SBS) and DTS Equip (a leadership school) came up, and both of those sounded appealing. But shortly after I started considering all of these ideas, I realized that I was being kind of an idiot. I realized I was being steered by my emotions, and by the good-vibes about whatever came up. And during this time where I was considering all of these things, I was just unhappy. I just wasn't alright with where I was, and the anxiety/confusion I was putting on myself just didn't help anything that all. Around this time, I started to seriously question why I wanted to even staff SBS schools, or be a teacher at all, in the first place. And what I quickly saw (or God revealed to me) was that I wanted to get involved with this teaching for my own glory. Pride had snuck in and took a nice comfy seat inside me, and started steering my mind in a direction that would ultimately lead to giving me the most personal satisfaction. And once I started questioning my motives, everything else became irrelevant, as whatever I did was going to be tainted by my own ego, which isn't a healthy place to do everything out of.

Sometime recently, past couple weeks or so, during this time of my self questioning of motives regarding my future, I felt like God reminded me of something very important. I felt like while I was worrying about what was to come, that he was essentially saying 'What are you worried about? I already told you.' And there it was. That was the direction I had been seeking, the answer to my worries, the reminder of the path that God had put me on, and why I had been so discouraged and confused over the past few months. I was trying to take myself off of what God had provided for me, I had gotten selfish and arrogant, making things more about me than they should have been. God is doing something with me, I'm not sure what, but the reasons he is putting me through this school and the future schools means he is doing something that will lead me into something that isn't going to be about me. He seems to be training me to exist for other people, to grow personally in order to share that growth with whomever needs it. I get to experience this ride, but ultimately, there are more people here with me than I can see. This time has far less to do with me than I had come to believe.

And ultimately, understanding (I think, at least) what God's plan going forward is, is what has been bringing me peace, and bringing me out of that time of anxiety and confusion. I feel like I am getting back to where God had me 6 months ago at the start of this thing, but I feel like my heart has been broken and rebuilt in a way that it wasn't before. It has taught me the reliance I cannot put in myself, and reminded me about how pride can ruin even the most noble of goals, and how it can happen without you even knowing it.


And abrupt ending, but that is all I have to say. Just know, above all, more important than anything I can tell you, that God is good.





-Josh Miller

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