Home Again

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. I agree with him although maybe for different reasons than he wrote it. Three years of seminary have come and gone. I left Chicago not truly knowing where this road would lead me. There were plenty of times in my first year that I wanted to pack my things and head back home. Every time that happened, the Holy Spirit kept me in Holland somehow. I am grateful that I stuck it out. I worked hard, especially during my last semester. At one point I had nine classes, two online and seven in-residence. The most hectic time was when the finals time for the online classes and mid-term time for the in-residence classes coincided. I am not quite sure how I made it through.

I am a different person than I was three years ago. Sure, I am just as goofy and laid back as I ever was. However, in other areas I am a different person. I have a different outlook on life and I want different things from life than I did before I left for seminary. Coming back home, I feel the temptation to fall back into my old ways. I feel a distance from those friends that I once knew. I don't quite know how to interact with everybody. This is not to say that I want to go back to seminary, I am quite happy that those days are over with. I just don't know where I fit in right now. I got accustomed to a particular way of living and a rhythm of life in Holland. Now that I am back in Chicago, that rhythm has been thrown off.

I find myself in a peculiar place where I don't really know what is going to happen next. I am playing a waiting game with several different churches. I know that I must have faith that God will lead me in the right path. However, knowing that I need faith is not my problem. The problem is whether that faith is active or passive. I tend to have a passive faith about life. I know that God, through the Holy Spirit, is who will lead me where I should go. However, I don't actively seek out that guidance. I am both ready for the next chapter of life to begin but also scared out of my mind. Can I be what God has called me to be? Certainly God wouldn't have called me to be a pastor if he hasn't equipped me to be one. But there is a responsibility on my end to live into that call fully. The next couple months will be an interesting time for me. I feel like the Israelites in the wilderness, knowing they should follow that fire cloud but sometimes longing for what they had in Egypt.