My Misspent College Days

My Misspent College Days

My college years were heady days of lectures, wine, song and prayer. We wrote essays, or tried and we used to have these things called tutorials. A hapless student would be asked to prepare a paper and the others would savagely tear it to pieces, arguing the toss and pointing out the flaws in the logic. I think today we would call it a healthy, robust debate but at the time it seemed cruel to those who were of a more sensitive nature. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out the theological niceties of the divine and proving that somehow we were the gatekeepers and guardians of the impeachable truth.

It was not until I heard a line from a colleague some 40+ years later that I began to see things from a much healthier perspective. My friend said something like this.

‘What if, it is not about what we think about God on any given day, but rather it is about what God thinks of us each and every day. Maybe if I had heard those words, grasped them, clutched them to myself and integrated them into my soul, the last few decades may not have been so torturous.

For the truth that I have come to understand, nearly too late is that I can argue the toss and ponder and panic about the unfathomable God, but my energy would be more fruitfully expended in just allowing the delicious reality that the Master adores me and wants to continue to engage with me, even when and especially, when I have been at my most ghastly and shabbiest.

It is not about what I think of God on any given day. It IS about what God thinks about me (and you) each and every day.