On The Brink

I can't seem to get it out of my head that, in a matter of days, I take the test that generally determines the fate of my existence. Okay, so maybe the GRE is not the LSAT, and maybe I have never really cared quite this much about a standardized test before, but come on, this is a big deal. Two individual scores add up to one single solitary set of (hopefully) four numbers that tell some board of faculty and administrators whether I have a place at their institution. Once it single-handedly determines my eligibility of placement, it then puts me into a pool of candidates where I, much like Donald Miller describes in Searching For God Knows What, pray to God that He has gifted more than everyone else in the lifeboat so that I make it out on top - so that I alone survive.

Funny how I told myself, not even a year ago, that it would not be like this. That if this was going to be my path, then I wasn't going to let this process of preparing, applying, and eventually getting into Grad school become one of those all-consuming, self-involved, and consequently misdirected ventures. I was wrong. It's funny, more in an ironic way than a humorous way, because it parallels most of the challenges I have faced in life anytime a glimpse of God's plan for my life is allowed. And I mean that honestly, as much as I can say without sounding hokey. I just know it is true that I was drawn to this city, this school, for a reason apart from what I had originally set out for. And it's provided a firm footing from which to step, yet I should not be striving.

I never would have imagined, in my uncanniest of dreams, that I would be in this place. So what reason have I to believe that anything I do would change that - whether for the good or the bad? This theme ties in so strongly with the scriptures several friends and I have been reading as we meet together every Wednesday night to share a meal and study the Bible. We've been scouring over Galatians, a book addressing a people's confusion as to what position grace and the gospel has over the law. Last night, there came in a moment of discussion, this moment of clarity I just cannot shake from my system: After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing, —if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

It is not what I do now that determines what I will do, nor who I am that determines who I will be; it has never been so. Faith that rests in the promise of God, Who has long since determined this path before me, is necessary. And what is unnecessary is the inner turmoil, or as we spoke of last night - "contemplation of the navel," that has driven so much of my last few handfuls of days.

So maybe, just maybe, in a matter of days I will score well on a test that serves only as Academia's way of figuring out what God has already spoken whispers of. And maybe this firm footing will keep me until the next step is ahead; but as for now, I am merely on the brink.