Broken Vessel

I am in my second week of being an Asburian? Wilmorite? Seminarian?...a new student. Asbury holds "intensive" courses. They are aptly named. It is one whole 3 hour course credit class, in a week's time. My intensive is about theories. Five days from 8-5. Theory. Theory about families. Theory about why families are dysfunctional. I don't think I have a "dysfunctional" family, but by Friday, I was having my doubts. I was warned about self-diagnosing. Man, was that warning ever so right. 

I doubted everything on Friday. Why am I here? What am I doing? Am I smart enough? Do I know enough? Blah blah blah. You get it, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has ever felt bad about themselves right? So Friday night, I took a drive. There is something healing about these Kentucky hills and the windows rolled down. I let the doubt settle, away from my heart and I let the King just sing his love over me.

So I began to think about and pray over this idea of doubt. This call to Asbury was unlike anything I have felt before. Have you ever felt something so strongly? Something that you knew had to be from none other than God? I knew that God was in and through this decision. Every step. But, there was this tiny black dot of doubt that was growing in my mind. I rested all weekend. I needed to let my brain recuperate from the copious amounts of information it had received the days before. Sometimes we need to do that. Close your eyes and tune out, even if it's just for an hour. 

One of my favorite reminders of being human is from Acts.

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

-Acts 4:13

I love this. I needed this reminder this weekend. What I received was totally...on time.

The sermon on Sunday at the church I visited was on doubt. And even better. Peter doubting. Friday night-I had my feet in two places. One stuck in the doubt that remains in this journey. The other, here, at Asbury, soaking it all in. So I let it go. All the doubt and insecurity. God used the ordinary and uneducated to be with Jesus. And the promise of hope continues, because God continues to use the ordinary and unschooled. I'm a broken soul, but I'm healing. I'm a hopeful wanderer. I'm pretty ordinary, quirky, but ordinary. And Jesus is using me.

So friends. Are you looking back or pressing forward? We got this guys. Press on.

"Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” 

-Matthew 28: 16-20