Intent

First, the intent of this blog's existence: today marks approximately year 15 as a Christian, month 18 as a United Methodist, day 67 as a married woman, day 2 as a seminarian and day 1 as an official youth minister. You might be able to tell that I keep pretty busy and usually have a lot to think about. Maybe you'll think what I have to say is interesting and maybe you won't, but as a wise friend once told me, it's better to put it all down in words.

Second, the intent of today's blog in particular: to talk about intent. This has been a theme of the last few days for me. Why am I in DC? Why am I at seminary? Why do I want to be a youth minister? Why do I care about this or that issue?

As I said, I very recently started seminary; as you may not know, this is terrifying. I get the distinct feeling, both from my own harried thoughts and from the way the administrators keep reassuring us that everything is going to be okay (as though they are used to people breaking down before classes even start), that doubt is pretty common around here. Sure, you were certain when you applied that God wanted you here, that it would be an incredible opportunity for learning, growth, and service. Then, as you go through the process of registering for classes like Missional Evangelism and you listen to people talk for hours about all the things you'll do while you're here and when you're done, you start to look around and wonder if everyone else knows that you're not good enough to be here. In fact, you probably start to think that maybe you were lying to yourself about your call from the beginning, and really you're just here so people will think how incredibly devoted to the faith you are.

Two things come to mind here.
-Doubts aren't necessarily based in fact. Not everyone in the universe wants you to be here, and making you question your motives is a good start to sending you packing.
-Should your doubts actually be true, another piece of wisdom from a friend should be considered. She was talking about mission trips at the time, but I think it's pretty applicable no matter what kind of call you're [not] following. She told me, "Heather, hardly anyone goes for the right reasons. They  might think they do, but really, they go because they think it will be fun or they think it will make them look good or they just think that it's something that they should do. The awesome thing is that no matter why you go, God can use you anyway if you let him."

That being said, now you're [I'm] here, regardless of why you [I] came, and you [I] have to decide to actually use this as the time of learning, growth and opportunity you originally thought it was. If you don't, you're wasting your time and energy as well as the time and energy of everyone who is going to be investing in you from here on out. Following your call, both generally as a Christian and specifically as a minister in any means, means periodically evaluating your path and your motives and correcting one, the other or both. If your intent is really to grow in your faith and be used for the kingdom, I think it'll probably work out, no matter how much you think you've botched everything. So to close, a quote from David Lowes Watson about the Christian's call: "Mistakes there will be, and shortcomings. But there must be no compromise of intent."