The close of June brought about the end of ISUM, the month-long ministerial advancement seminary held here in Mérida. As we near mid July, I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience and think about my re-entry into the normal missionary life.
ISUM is known by it’s grueling schedule and intense homework. The deadlines seemed to stack on top of each other as we prepared for 5 class periods each evening. Exhaustion was our common enemy as we fought back sleep in order to complete all of our tasks. Still, the struggle had a comfortableness about it. Being a to-do list writer, I found great satisfaction in marking off each assignment as I completed it, and although I routinely hit the pillow around 1:00 or 2:00 AM I did so with a feeling of accomplishment.
The return to normalcy, although less demanding on the schedule, didn’t come with the neat guidelines. A team to receive in late July, finding a house to move into by the middle of July, a youth retreat in August and the accumulation of work needing my attention while I was in ISUM each bring conflicting priorities and a collective clamoring for attention. There are no convenient class plans to follow and no instant feedback in the form of quizzes and tests along the way. These realities pose a problem for my order hungry mentality.
I would say that this may be the life that we all lead. We shout for independence as a youth, but we long for the simplicity of our childhood as adults. We have arrived at the place where we are free to determine our lives but we tire of the responsibilities, the leadership, and the need to hold everything together, and we long for someone to just tell us what to do.
And yet, this is our situation in our walk with the Lord. We face difficult decisions daily. We pray with fervency for direction, but rarely does the answer come in the form of a carefully worded class syllabus or a turn-by-turn Google Map. It’s then that we need to apply the knowledge that we’ve learned in the School of the Spirit of God’s Word, when we need to move from the parable to the person on the street, and that is where we most often fail.
The disciples coming off of a successful tour of ministry, casting out demons and healing the sick, failed the test of the Lord when facing the need of the multitude. “You give them something to eat,” he said. They reached for their calculators instead of their faith. Lk. 9:13
So is our daily struggle, rarely hectic to the point of the exhaustion of ISUM, but rarely as neat and tidy as the daily plan of activities that we received for each class. Still I’m glad we serve a patient Lord. Jesus did come through for the disciples. And, as we continue in our daily training, being formed into more into the image of our Master, I’m glad to know that our rate of success increases.
