This past week, I finished my first seminary class in two years. The last one I had completed was in the summer of 2024 when my daughter, Seoirse, was born. It felt so good to finally be able to get back into my studies. I keep thinking of how grateful I am that I don’t get to pursue any generic master’s degree; I get to study the Bible for my degree.
I learned so much from the class I took this semester, but one of the biggest things I learned over the past few months was contentment. I graduated from college five years ago (it seems like a lifetime ago!) and started seminary immediately after. I took three classes in my first semester, took one class in the winter term, and then three more in the spring. I was on track to graduate in 3-4 years with the rest of the people I had started with. But God had other plans.
I met my now wife in the middle of the spring semester of my first year, and we were married one year later. Six months later, she became pregnant with our daughter, who was born in July 2024. During this time, I had put a pause on my education so that my wife and I could get our feet under us as a new married couple and as new parents, and also because we were working hard to pay off the $80,000 in student loans we had both accumulated (which we did by God’s grace last summer!).
Though I knew that prioritizing my family was the right thing to do, there was still an internal struggle going on in my heart during those two years I was out of school. I have felt called to ministry since my senior year of high school, and I have very intentionally pursued that call ever since. In college, I was heavily involved with leading the campus ministry there. I also had opportunities to teach and preach at the church I attended. And then, of course, attending seminary full-time my first year. Then, all of a sudden, it came to a halt. Again, I knew that prioritizing my family was the right thing to do, but it was hard to take a step back from pursuing ministry. Or was I?
In the class I took this semester, we had a few Zoom meetings with the professor where we could simply ask any questions we wanted. During one of these meetings, one of the other students asked a question that I greatly appreciated. What advice or encouragement do you have for students who have accepted their calling but have busy lives? The professor gave an answer that encouraged me, and I’m sure it encouraged others as well. “Don’t disqualify yourself by neglecting your spouse and neglecting your kids. If you graduate from seminary and your marriage is a disaster…and your kids are a disaster, and your household is not managed well, you’re disqualified from ministry. We have to learn to prioritize.” This comes from 1 Timothy 3:4-5, “He [the overseer] must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”
In reality, I wasn’t taking a step back from ministry by not going to school for a time and raising a family instead. That is ministry, and it is the most important kind. I was talking to my wife about all this a few weeks ago, and I told her that I was honestly worried about getting back into school with this class. I was worried that taking it would make me discontent about how I can’t do more, since I’ll likely be taking another break, though hopefully not as long this time. But far from making me discontent, this class has had the opposite effect on me and has made me grateful for any opportunity I have to study.
God’s plan, path, and timing are different for everyone. Two of the friends I still keep in contact with from my first year of seminary have turned out differently from me, but each of us is on the path that the Lord has laid out for us. They have already graduated, while I am five years in and only a third of the way through, but that is by God’s design.
In modern America, it is common to measure our success by our own personal achievements and how we stack up against other people. But ultimately, this will lead to envy and jealousy, because there will always be someone else out there who seems to be ahead of us. It will lead to a never-ending, never-satisfying chase when the thing that should really be satisfying us is being obedient to what God has called us to. “My food is to accomplish the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).
May we be like those two servants who, though they were given different amounts of talents, used what they were given to enrich their master’s estate, and not like the one who was given less than the other two, and chose to hide his away and do nothing with it (Matthew 25:14-30).
Above All Things 