The following was written to our student and seminary community as a new semester begins in Spring semester 2009.
We are called to trust the Lord as do the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. These days test our responses to Jesus’ invitation to the life of freedom found in Matthew 6:25-34. Yet which is really riskier? Do we put our trust in the world of stocks and bonds and sure things like punting on seminary to go to business school where we think security is guaranteed? Or do we trust the One whose joy has overflowed into Creation and as Chesterton put it, “…says with delight to the rising sun in the morning: Do it again!” At least in these days we have seen the unmasking of the charade of trusting in this world. For now. Soon you and I will be tempted again, maybe even later today, to forego the promises of God for the sure bets of this age. Just remember that under the cold ground of this wintry campus lie daffodils and azaleas preparing for a spring blaze of blooming. Within the stark limbs of the redbud and the dogwood trees is life in the waiting. We know that because we know of God’s faithfulness. It is no risk to trust our souls, our careers, our years, our lives, our eternity to the God who makes daffodils and dogwoods. Or raises His Son from the dead. Welcome, with trust in God, to a new semester of preparing for a life of ministry.