Coming Full Circle

It's true that God has a plan for each and everyone of our lives and I'd like to think he has a sense of humor. Just look at how he constructs our lives. You could not write some of this stuff better. In my own circumstances he put me at a school that I definitely didn't want to be at freshmen year and now four years later and I don't want to leave. 

What led to such a drastic change in my own mindset? A great deal, but I would say that at the core of my own shift was Christ. In my efforts to pursue him more in college, he blessed my with friends and a community of believers also searching after him. That has made my time in college worth it just as much as the classes, the experiences, and all the other things I have been blessed with and hit with these last four years. 

Recently as I started getting nostalgic and maybe waxing a little poetic about my college years, I thought about how God has worked in my life. For instance, I already mentioned my admiration for Switchfoot and front man Jon Foreman, but when I heard they came out of UCSD I took them as my own. They were like me, writing their songs out of places I had been physically and emotionally. I cannot downplay their impact. 

However, I also still remember a sermon freshmen year and honestly I cannot really remember all that much except it was about the older brother in the prodigal son narrative. I'm not sure if it was related to the message or not, but I just remember coming out of that truly reassured that God had put me at UCSD  for a purpose, even if I didn't know it yet. 

Then I also distinctly remember praying a prayer earnestly to the Lord shortly thereafter. Please Lord give me a really good friend! I don't need a lot of friends necessarily, but at least one that I'm really close to. It didn't see like it would happen in this massive wasteland also known as UCSD, but was faithful. He raised up out of my own college a best friend, out of the few people I knew. As a result, I made a great many friends that I have and will cherish, but that one was the beginning and God really and truly answered that prayer. 

On a different note, I was just recently talking to one of my roommates about how I remember each year of college by the place I lived. Otherwise, all the experiences often blur together or fade away, making it difficult to differentiate one from the other. Each place has memories, some better than others, but all important to this experience. 

I will say I was happy to get out of the freshmen res hall for good, sophomore year apartments were the best and I look back fondly. Living off campus with different people is obviously a starkly different experience with major pros and some cons. I wouldn't trade them at this point. 

As I sat in the Radiate Cru conference in the midst of my worship I was reminded of the first conference I ever went to. It was actually a fall retreat, but there were some similar experiences. Here I was worshiping with other people I deeply appreciated and here I was worshiping in a way that I really never had before. I come from a Presbyterian background and while I appreciate that immensely it's great and necessary to have other worship experiences. There's something about worshiping for minutes on end until your feet are fatigued and your voice is almost hoarse with exhaustion. You still sing on uninhibited and it's a great offering up to the Lord. 

At the conference one of the talks also talked about Hebrews 11 where, by faith, Bibical heroes like Abraham carried on God's call faithfully. I can still remember that same Fall Retreat where the talk was on the chapter after that. Hebrews 12. I had heard it before, but it never impacted as much as that Sunday morning. The idea that there is a cloud of witnesses around us, and there is solidarity as we run this race towards the finish line. It's a stirring encouraging picture and I have never forgot it. It gives me context for my own spiritual journey in light of world history and eternal perspective. 

But up into this point, I haven't said much about God's supposed sense of humor, only his faithfulness, which has been extremely evident. Well, how do you explain that I wound up leading a bible study in my old res hall from freshmen year. Same building, same rooms, same couches. You cannot make stuff like this up. I really thought I'd never have to come back here and yet God brought me back to be a light here once more. 

All I can do is thank Him for how he has blessed me and give Him all the glory. 

Souvenirs

Here’s to the twilight

Here’s to the memories

These are my souvenirs

My mental pictures of everything

Here’s to the late nights

Here’s to the firelight

These are my souvenirs

My souvenirs

~ Souvenirs by Switchfoot

Last night I got the privilege to see one of my personal heroes in my own home of these past four years. He blessed us with a few songs: "Only Hope," "Terminal," and "Dare You to Move," while weaving together a message through this tapestry of song and spoken words.

The overarching theme of the night was that each of us has a song inside of us that we need to unearth (There's a song inside of my soul. It's the one that I've tried to write over and over again), by digging through all the crevices of our lives including all the darkness and finding what makes us truly sing. And of course, in our singing, just like our Creator in Genesis, we give Him immense joy, even in our weakness. Because we are terminal beings (We are the living souls, with terminal hearts, with terminal parts) in need of a Savior.

Thanks be to God then, that wretched man that I am he can and will deliver me from my sin. Such a reality lets us move forward with almost a radical fearlessness. We can step into the tension, the wrong notes, and the messiness in our lives and accept it for what it is (The tension is here. The tension is here. Between who you are and who you could be. Between how it is and how it should be). We can struggle and kick and claw and ultimately accept life for what it is. There is oftentimes immense beauty in these discordant notes in life. As with anything, this extreme polarity of joy and pain, only makes the sweeter notes all the more rewarding. There is beauty that rises out of that tension. 

Foreman suggested that makes it worthwhile to step into the suffering, confusion, and apathy, because those are very honest and human states. And we already have confidence that salvation is here. It was a stirring reminder, a little nugget of an evening that I will probably carry with me for sometime. I'll try not to by hyperbolic, but I think some of the reason the evening was so moving, upon reflection, is that it felt like in some ways like I'm coming full circle.

In fact, I have always admired Jon Foreman greatly ever since I listened to my older brother's CDs of "Learning to Breathe" and "The Beautiful Letdown" as a kid. But Switchfoot and specifically Jon Foreman, as a thinker, believer, artists, and fellow UCSD student, really resonated with me when I got to San Diego. 

When I look back now, it's almost hard to remember those days of doubt and insecurity when I thought that God had placed me at the wrong school. Or at least I wasn't sure why I was at UCSD. I have different doubts now, as I always seem to have, but Jon has always been sort of a kindred spirit. 

When I learned a little bit of his backstory, he seemed all the more relatable and his music took on even greater personal significance, because it felt like he was coming out of some the same places as me. He was thinking and struggling with many of the things I had, and he also was a very thoughtful person when it came to the complex issues of life. He even inspired me to try my hand at Soren Kierkegaard and Augustine, which proved to be very tough going on both accounts. But I'm immensely glad I did. 

His music has really been the soundtrack of my life these past four years. There are so many songs that I have listened to time and time again, whether I was making the long trek across campus or simply sitting somewhere contemplating life. These songs fit every situation and they spoke into different concerns of my own life at different times. The music felt like it was meant for me.

Truth be told, I went through different cycles with various songs and yet a lot of them still resonate with me. My college years have bred apathy at times. I've striven for meaningful relationships in this labyrinth of concrete and calculations. I've struggled with pain and fallen prey to doubt more times than I can even remember. Technology often sucks my soul dry. And yet again and again I return to a God who loves and cherishes me, yearns for justice and to bring his children home to him. I'm constantly fluctuating through all the high and lows of the human experience.

Thus, there's no rhyme or reason to these tunes. It's a very eclectic bunch, but I'm grateful to Jon for penning them, because they were greatly appreciated -- for their beauty, clarity, and honesty. I hope that someday, whatever I do, I might point people towards Christ and in the same breath lift them up and speak into their lives like he has spoken into mine. Without further ado, here is my personal list of souvenirs courtesy of Jon Foreman. Give them a listen if you're so inclined.

• Chem 6A
• Concrete Girl
• Give Me Back My Girl
• When we Come Alive
• Easier than Love
• Faust Midas and Myself
• Let Your Love Be Strong
• Your Love is Strong
• Equally Skilled
• Instead of a Show
• Let That Be Enough
• A Mirror is Much Harder to Hold
• Birthright
• Caroline
• Against the Voices
• Sorrow
• June and Johnny
• Drums of War
• Betrayal
• Again
• Ghost Machine
• When We Collide
• Inheritance
• Evergreen