I’m less than a week away from starting a 3-year, online program to obtain my Masters in Divinity with an emphasis on Worship degree. All the paperwork has been turned in. All the introductory classes have been completed. All the appointments with counselors are over. At this point, I am waiting… simply waiting for the first class to officially start.
Which means I have time to think.
My mind is going in just about every different direction it possibly can. The emotional roller-coaster is whipping me around tight corners, rushing me up and down hills, and screaming through loops.
I am both extremely excited and outrageously nervous. My anxiety is soaring and yet at the same time, I can’t wait to start. The opportunity to learn more about God makes me giddy with joy but the amount of reading and assignments coming my way makes me stiff with fear.
When I was a freshman in high school, I was sitting in an open-aired, early evening tabernacle service, during a hot summer in the south part of Oklahoma with thousands of other students.
That’s when I knew… God has a specific plan for my life. I knew at that point that God was going to begin to shape and form me into someone He could use to grow His church.
From that moment, it has often been a bare-knuckle fight with God that I have yet to win, nor do I ever foresee myself ever getting close to winning. God has been relentless in His creating of who he wants me to be. It has not been easy and often it has not been fun.
Now, I think God has a great sense of humor because He has opened my mind to going back to school.
I never liked school. I was never really good at school.”C’s get degrees!” was my motto throughout college. Yet, God has been pushing me to go back to school for a few years now and I have finally decided to jump right in.
So here is my first confession: I’m afraid of failing.
I’m afraid. I’m afraid of failing myself… I’m afraid of failing my family, my coworkers, and my friends. But most of all I’m afraid of failing God.
My second confession: I’m afraid of what God expects of me.
I want God to expect the most out of me. I want to meet God’s expectations of me. If God continues to expect things from me, then I know that He has not given up on me.
The reason for writing this blog is because I need to get these thoughts out of my head. I have a great group of people supporting me: my beautiful wife, my family, my coworkers and my friends.
I am extremely grateful for all of these people but I will need you to continue to push me. I need you to encourage me. I need you to call me out when I begin to fall behind in my work. You need to remind me why I decided to pursue this degree if I want to quit.
I want to say that everything will be easy over the next 3 years. I want to believe that I will be the first person in the school’s program history to graduate with a 4.0 GPA. I want to think that I’ll walk across the stage knowing the Bible inside and out.
I know that the only way I’m going to get through this experience is by His grace and by His mercy; with Him strengthening me and with Him helping me.
28 Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. 29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. 31 But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. | Isaiah 40:28-31
Trent Fugitt 