Beginning

Well, this is my first go around with blogging... in keeping with my own personal history, I am running a few years behind trendy, fashionable things. I have been hearing about blogging for a number of years, so naturally, about the time something else is probably about to emerge as the new hip forum for communication, I will conform to this now antiquated cultural enterprise. So, while I am a little late in the game, I am knowingly late in the game, and I trust that will count for something and earn me some sort of a pass. I am completely unsure of how to proceed, so I will start with recent events as a primer.

This last weekend included a significant day for me... Graduation! I now have a Master's Degree in the area of Conflict Management. What? Conflict Management? That's right... they have degrees for that. If you're not sure what that is, just think of it as an appropriate education to pursue for anyone who has three sons and one on the way... it's a lot like getting a degree in life actually, and you could to if you are just willing to take on a significant amount of debt. Any way, it would seem logical to make my first blog about that, because I am pretty sure both things, blogging and earning a master's degree, would individually validate me as a person and make me awesome. So, the fact that I am doing both at the same time should tell you that I am a pretty big deal.

But seriously, I was struck this morning at the thought of beginnings. Here I am completing a challenging and rewarding season, finishing something I set out to do that didn't come cheap or easy... graduating. We think of graduating as an ending in itself, but really, it is a beginning. And if you think I am hijacking some profound commencement address that was given, let me dispel that faulty notion right now with a side note: someone at Kennesaw State University knows more about the history of that town and college than any man ever should... and now I know more than I ever wanted as well. 

At any rate, it occurs to me that I am always trying to finish things, never thinking too much about how every time I do, I begin something else. I have been meditating all weekend on an idea that Paul confidently conveys to his Phillipian brotha's, when he writes, "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." 

I guess, when tempted to rest a bit in an accomplishment, or relish in a certain level of achievement, or to be under any impression that I have arrived at my ultimate destination, there is this haunting and beautiful reminder that my destination is not an accomplishment or even a place... rather, my destination is the person of Christ Jesus. Until he arrives again, therefore, I have not, nor has anyone else arrived. 

Until that day, every ending is really a new beginning, and I am a work in process. When I "succeed" or "graduate", He is beginning something new and I have yet more to learn, and still more expected of me. When I fail or fall short, I just get up, dust myself off and get after it again, assured that things are not over. 

Today, while I am done with school (for now), it is now time to translate the things I have learned through academic theory, research and social science into improving the world in which I live. In fact, according to John 15:22 this ending is the beginning of more accountability to God for what I do with what I have learned. Jesus says in that passage that "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin." Truth is no small thing... Jesus indicates that once we know something, we are accountable for living in light of it, period. 

So this is the beginning, for me, of parlaying biblical ideas, a secular education, and a small mountain of debt into improved relationships and kingdom advancement... until I arrive... or until Christ Jesus arrives... whichever comes first I suppose.