To The Average Gordon Student

Dear Gordon student,

I've been praying for you today. And God put on my heart some things that you need to know.

The main thing I think we're missing is hope.

You've done this Christian life for so long- probably ever since you were eight or ten or four. You've waited for God, you've cried out for God, and maybe sometime along the line He didn't show up the way you wanted Him to. Maybe you laid in your bed late at night, whispering out the things that hurt your heart the most and all you heard is resounding silence. Or maybe you went to a retreat and you did see God, heard God, and got all up on that spiritual high only to crash the week later and fall deeper into sin.

And I'm afraid some kind, knowing person came to you and told you that you were just expecting too much of God. He'll change us, but we shouldn't expect any drastic change. He'll speak to us, but only through Victor Hugo, poetry, or nature- not His actual voice.

I wonder if you were deeply hurt in your life. No, I'm sure you were at some point. And maybe those friends that betrayed you and gossiped about you or the family who didn't exist for you left some serious scars on your life. And I'm afraid that this voice of 'reason' told you that you can't expect anything more. And somehow you were convinced to give up on loving. So, why put yourself out there? Why be vulnerable? Why allow yourself to love someone even if they don't love you back?

I'm afraid we've let ourselves become cynical. I'm not saying we don't have good reason. There's no sense in pretending that those things didn't happen. But I also know that this can't be the end of the story.

I don't want to spend my whole life protecting myself and in turn miss God's hand in our lives.

Cause that's the thing. God does change us. God does heal us. God promised to complete His work in us.
There is more of God than you think there is. We can dare to love the unlovely, the unloving because He'll hide us in His love. Don't settle for the idea that prayer only changes you. Prayer moves the heart of God, the Almighty.

I'm reading this book called Always Enough by Heidi and Rolland Baker. There were major, devastating floods in Mozambique, killing over a million people and ruining the crops of millions more. Yet, when Heidi and Rolland would come with food and Bibles, the people wanted Bibles before their food. They knew that God would do more good for them than food. They had faith in His ability to change them and save them. They knew Jesus as the living, active God. I want us as a campus to know that.

We can't do this Christian life by ourselves. But God never wanted us to in the first place. He wants to empower us to live supernatural lives. He wants to bring Shalom into our lives. Flourishing. To heal every wound, to dispel every fear, to break off all dysfunction. He'll bring you more good than you can bring yourself. I want Him for your life, and so does He.

"My lover is mine and I am His"- Song of Solomon 2:16a

Love,

Jess