August 22, 2008

Time, Time, Time



"Time, time, time, see what’s become of me"
, those are the lyrics from Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel and they express exactly where I am at today. It's been almost a month since my last post and I feel like my blog has been neglected, but at the same time I have been more busy then I have ever been in life. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like you could not get any more busy then you are right now? Well that is where the Lord has brought me to.

Next week I will be starting seminary and trying, Lord willing, to get my Masters Degree in Divinity. This will done on top of my current schedule of bringing up a family in the fear and admonition of the Lord, a full time job and a full time ministry. When I step back and look at this schedule I do not see how this will work, but knowing that our Lord and Savior is bigger then my scheduling issues, I know I will get through this time as long as I rest in Him.That is the part I glory in. The fact that when all is said and done that if I achieve anything it will be because He did it and not me.

"Won’t you stop and remember me, At any convenient time" is another line from Hazy Shade of Winter. As I thought about the thing I fear the most in starting this journey is that my family and my friends would be left in the wake of seminary; that the words sung by Simon and Garfunkel would be their mantra. I pray that this would not be so.I pray that I would not be the man that was described to me in an illustration this week at seminary orientation. The man that come graduation day had his wife put his books in the place where she used to sleep and told him to spend the rest of his life curling up next to his books, because she was not putting up with the neglect any longer.I pray that I would not disqualify myself from ministry at the same time I seek to serve the Lord in full time ministry.

I do know that I serve a "BIG" God. I do know that I serve a God that will help me if I ask Him. So I pray for balance in my life. To me it is not important to get "A's" for the sake of getting "A's". I mean it's not as if you get a better church if you graduate Sigma Cum Laud. I just pray that I would do all that I have on my plate to the glory of God and to the best of my ability. In this time I fear mediocrity more then anything else. I do pray for excellence.

"Hang on to your hopes, my friend" is one last quote from that song and I do believe it is my sentiment as I close today's blog.Here are my hopes as I go down this path:

1) My walk with the Lord would grow.

2) My family time would be quality time.

3) My ministry would be God centered.

4) My time in school work would be excellent in nature.

5) Lastly, that I would have time to blog.(truly not important, but definitely fun).

By the way I know if I were exegeting Hazy Shade of Winter I probably would have exegeted it wrong, so please forgive me in the use of the song. For those of you that are worried that if I exegete music wrong how can I exegete the Word of God, well......to be totally blunt with you......Get A Life! That was a song, not the inerrant Word of the Living God.