STUDENT BLOG – Blake
Our first class of students in the Aprentis Institute just finished a class titled Renovation of the Heart – in which they studied Dallas Willard’s book by the same name. As a final project, they were asked to reflect on the transformation of their “vision for life in the kingdom of God” over the course of their time in the Institute. We received several excellent papers and wanted to share some of our students’ hearts with you! Here is the first in a series of student blogs:
My vision began with present perception and progressed to a dream that I believe is a tangible destination. I see that I am loved by my creator. I see at this present moment that my God not only loves me but embraces all as his beloved. Daily I see that King Jesus is in control and incarnationally displayed in my peers, professors, and the homeless guy on the street corner by my favorite coffee shop. I see the kingdom of God unite with this world when broken people serve broken people. I see Jesus in my mother as she daily wars against the hopelessness of stage four breast cancer. I see Jesus in every step my father has run to find meaning in his wife’s condition. I see the gentleness of God in my brother’s soft demeanor and compassionate heart. I have seen Jesus the Son of God.
Confessing that I have seen Jesus I must proclaim the vision I have for my life spent with this Jesus I have seen. I have a vision that I will be a man that will constantly be formed to the contours of my Creator’s hands. I desire to be an adoring husband, and loving father. Daily embracing the fact that King Jesus dwells inside of me, and exhibiting the trait of my Abba to my children and wife. I have vision that I will fall in love with the Bride of Christ, the Church. I want my heart to break for the hurting people who cover up their brokenness with divine edifices and Christian jargon. I have a vision that one day I will see the Kingdom of God kiss this earth at the sound of congregational worship. His church unified under one particularity, Jesus.
I have a vision that Justice will reign from the top of the highest mountain to the deepest sea. At the sound of a child groaning of hunger pains the church will say let justice reign and feed the child food that is glazed with the love of Jesus. At the sight of a homeless man or woman the church will say let justice reign and not judge them but embrace their Imago Dei. At the encounter of a woman who wants to abort a baby, a homosexual man, or Muslim man the church will say let justice reign and let the love of Christ transform and win because love will win. Love has won, and may the church tell all who wander if love will come that God’s love won in 30 AD when the God Man was strung up on tree then rose again three days later.
I have a vision that I will forever tell of the resurrection. I have vision that the Body of Christ will oppose the devastation found in this world through the proclamation of the victory found in the resurrection. The Body of Christ will confess reconciliation to a Kingdom of life and that this Kingdom is not bound to western culture, Asian thought, European taste, or African lifestyle. This Kingdom is universal through a particular man named Jesus Christ.
My ultimate vision is that my vision is always ready to be altered; that I never be a man who lets my vision occupy the place of Jesus. I desire to be a man who is always ready to begin again and again at the beginning. My faith constantly growing and being realigned as I find the path that has Jesus’ footprints on it. At my eulogy it is my vision that the only words read will be, “Blake, a man who strived to have the soles of his feet line up with the footprints of Jesus.”
Blake is a Senior, double majoring in Political Science & Christian Spiritual Formation.