(This May Be Long)

I've been thinking lately about what it is to be a student of religion. I know I'm just an undergrad, but I have a pretty heavy School of Religion course load this semester, and it has become quite a journey...

Because focusing academically on my God, on His Word, and on our experiences of Him, is an intensely personal matter. In this way I think religion just might be the most difficult "subject" of study available. Your life is made and broken on these things.

"Whatever comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us...we tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God." - A.W. Tozer

And what I talk about and listen to and come to rest on while navigating my education shapes my mental image of God.

I realize how malleable I am. I think my professors realize it too, but they certainly aren't any more hesitant to introduce crazy ideas to me. Making me read Plato, Tillich, Heidegger, Feminist theologians, German Liberalists, etc? I'm not super convinced of my ability to discern Truth among so many avenues and red herrings.

But what exactly is it I am doing? I am a student of theology, a student of other students, a student of the Christian tradition. I get to sit among historical discussions, modern discussions, and irrelevant discussions (maybe more often than you would think...). I stand under the claim of learning about God, but (un?)fortunately, I stand with a whole bunch of people who may be enlightened, crazy, both, what have you. The clutter of this academic discussion of God is awesome, terrifying, interesting, edifying, important, and, occasionally, distracting.

First and foremost, I want to be a student of God Himself. Some days I wonder if this is helped or hindered by my time in the School of Religion.

But I'm not all cynical. The deepest, most colorful, most meaningful insights I have had about the Lord and His revelation, about myself, about the world, have come to me as a result of sitting in a classroom.

I think being a religion student is this: sitting at a coffee shop with a 5 pound Bible commentary, enduring the stares of the general public wondering what in the world you are underlining in that Webster's Dictionary looking book of yours. It's sitting there sifting through the wordiness and vagueness to find nuggets of the heart of God. It's praying before opening your commentaries and textbooks and Greek Bible, praying that God would guard your heart and mind against the false truths and ideas that would take away from your knowledge of His love. It's begging Him to filter the knowledge and beliefs and ideas that stick to you, because you might not be able to filter them by yourself. It's being frustrated, confused, tired, and cynical after hours of reading old dead guys' books. It's finding that really amazing insight you wouldn't have found without a certain professor. It's loving thought, hating thought, wondering why we care about thought, and coming out on the other side. It's wrestling with yourself and with God, while standing on the backs of some very smart and Godly people who came before you.

And right now, today, I love it. Yesterday I hated it. It varies greatly. But I believe it's worth the struggle, because I'm falling more in love with the breadth and depth of this God I serve. I'm finding out that I don't fully agree with hardly anyone on this planet, and I think that is an interesting launching pad of a realization. I'm holding on tighter to the things I know to be true, the things I will not let go no matter how many theologians tell me to. I'm discovering an urge to seek out Godly men and women ahead of me who will help guide me in this treacherous journey. And God shows me a little more about Himself every day.

I pray that these things are preparing me for something greater down the road. That my knowledge will not puff up. That I will fall before the Lord one day without theories and paradigms and opinions, simply me, his daughter. That He will keep me from evil and lead me on the path of righteousness. And really, that He will use this time of learning in my life to further the Kingdom, foster relationships, and save many lives.

I just love Him. And He first loved me, gave His life to be with me. All the rest is just the cool stuff I get to think about and find and receive.

In the Religion Lounge the other day, Sarah and I were struggling with a particular theologian. I was saying, "You know, if he is right, and Christianity is not 'reality,' I've based everything I live for and strive for on a lie. My entire life."

A few of our professors walk in.

We proceed to be desperate and ask them why they were still Christians.

Skeen goes, "At the end of the day, Jesus loves me this I know."

Sometimes, that's all us School of Religion people can say.

But, really, what else is there?