It was just a few Saturday afternoons ago that I stood knee deep in foaming saltwater watching monstrosity after monstrosity of Atlantic waves swell up to crash mercilessly over the top of my head. Fear welled up in my stomach as plans of escape flew through my mind like rapid-fire at the coming of each new wave. I'm pretty sure Clark noted the look of terror on my face when he doubtfully asked me how much fun I was having. Then he dove in head-first as I cowered backwards into yet another mini-tsunami. Sometimes I wish I had the faith he does.
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Professor Robinson has quickly won my heart with his passion and pursuit of the Great Commission which he relates whole-heartedly to us students every Thursday for 3 hours in our Evangelism class.
His latest analogy was that of a wave crashing down, bearing God's wrath on its belly and consuming sinners (kinda like the waters of Wrightsville Beach attempted to consume me that weekend!) On the backside of God's waves, shallow, foaming waters of mercy swirl around to calm and comfort us. You can see why this analogy was easy for me to relate to!
As we continued on in class last week engaged in the portion of Dr. Robinson's lecture on the bilingual tongue of our Lord's wrath and mercy, I was all but overwhelmed by feelings of conviction, fear, conviction again... mercy, grace, more conviction... raw emotion, aaand probably a little more conviction. You can never have enough of that anyway, right?
Coming from a secular university, this is all too new to me, and I'm enraptured by the fact that I am privileged and blessed to be chosen by my Lord to sit in these classrooms and be filled up by the Truth of the Gospel so that I can pour out the Word of hope, mercy, and grace to a lost world in need of Jesus!
I don't want to fall under any pretense and say that I'm good at this by any means. And I certainly don't want to allow the presumption that I immediately leave the classroom and begin evangelizing. Unfortunately, I'm still a flawed sinner. But I'm here to learn and grow in my walk with Christ, and this Evangelism class is certainly being used by God to stretch me out of the parameters of my comfort zone. It has become my petition to the Lord to break down the walls in my heart and teach me to dive head-first in bold service to my King with the assurance that I will resurface on the backside of his bubbling eddies of compassion and favor.
