Faithful Scholars

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship recently started a monthly event called Faithful Scholars in conjunction with a recent Christian faculty member at WashU. The purpose of the event is to bring together Christian graduate students and faculty members to encourage each other in integrating their faith into their academic life. Each month a graduate student or a faculty member gives a presentation concerning what they have learned or are learning about integrating their faith into what they do.

 

Last month I was asked to give one of these presentations, which I gave last Tuesday. My focus was on the importance of reaching out to international students and more generally of the importance of being focused on God’s mission to redeem the lost in the midst of doing our studies. I explained that our own academic interests can often take precedence over God’s interests and that integrating one’s faith into academia or any area of life is more than just convincing oneself on an intellectual level that the two are not opposed.

 

I began with my own example of struggling with this issue. My interest in science began at an early age, and there was a period in my life during my early teens when I asked God almost every day to let me be a scientist when I grow up. I have old prayer journals to prove this. Thus, I was very excited about studying physics in college, and for the most part I really enjoyed the courses I took. As I neared my senior year, I knew that I wanted to go into graduate school, so during the summer I spent some time practicing physics problems in preparation for the physics GRE, which I would take at the end of the fall semester. However, I found that the problems took me a very long time to solve, and I became somewhat disappointed with myself.

During the fall semester I took a practice GRE test, and I did not do as well as I had hoped. During the next couple of months I took three more practice exams, but each time I got a score that was worse than the last; by the end of the semester I was rather disillusioned with physics, and I felt frustrated and bitter. I began contemplating doing something else with my life, something where I would find more satisfaction. I began, for example, to turn my thoughts toward overseas missions, or becoming a pastor, inspired, perhaps, by my parents’ work in Chile. I thought about going into languages as well. In any case, I experienced great internal conflict.

 

I did, however, get into a graduate school, and a good one, too. So, at the urging of almost everybody I knew (or so it seemed) I went to St. Louis. I went, though, burdened with many doubts about what was God’s calling for my life. Some of the questions I struggled with during this time were the following: “Am I really following God’s will? What are my spiritual gifts, and am I really using them? If not, is God displeased or disappointed with me? Why am I here?!” This last question, I later discovered, is a question that most graduate students ask themselves.

 

At the same time, thought, I think God was using this internal conflict to move me out of myself and to be more focused on His mission. I came to graduate school with a very missional attitude and was very conscientious about reaching out to others and sharing the gospel. I especially felt a burden to reach out to the international students, because I knew what it felt like to be a foreigner. I even started a Bible study with some of them, and while God has not used me to lead anyone to Christ (not yet, at least), He has used me to get some of these students to start thinking about God.

 

Looking back, I think that in college I had begun to make an idol out of physics and that God used disappointing circumstances to help me to see God’s bigger purposes for the world. Incidentally, it seems to me that at Covenant College the motto “in all things Christ preeminent” is used indiscriminately as a justification for following academic work in general. In my opinion, there is too much emphasis on “in all things” and not enough on “Christ preeminent.” On the other hand, I think my subsequent focus on missions was not without idolatry. I think over the past few years God has been showing me an even deeper idol in my life, namely success or accomplishment. So, when it seemed that I could not be very accomplished in physics, I sought the satisfaction that comes from success elsewhere, such as in missions. I expected that God would use me to speak the gospel boldly and that the result would be many people coming to Christ. Well, as I mentioned above, I haven’t personally led anyone to Christ, and this has also been a source of frustration for me. It seems that God is forcing me to find my sense of self worth in Him alone.

 

I’ll make another post a little later about what my thoughts are about what I will do after I graduate. My adviser thinks I can graduate in August. Yikes! I don’t feel ready.