Is This What Being Shaken Feels Like?

I had a meeting with one of my professors yesterday as part of an assignment. During our meeting he told me that he noticed I, like many Christians, like to dwell on my mountaintop experiences and that is proved in my writing for his class and it needed to stop. Ouch. Strike one for me.

In this meeting, which felt more like a lecture than it did a conversation, he subtly proceeded to inform me that I have far too much cognitive knowledge and that my heart is not fully a part of the vision of the Kingdom of God and I haven’t fully grasped the vision of what the Kingdom of God is supposed to look like. Ouch. Strikes two and three.

This has been dwelling on my heart for a little while now. Have all the things I’ve done in ministry been in vain? Do I really and truly not understand what being a servant leader looks like? Does the kid who can’t get her GPA above a 3.2 really have too much cognitive knowledge? Have I really been faking and fluffing my way through my faith in God for all these years because apparently I know how to give what seems like the right answers?

Of course I was upset and am still a little frustrated, but maybe this was a reality check. Maybe this was a lesson I needed to learn about doing a constant evaluation of my heart to make sure that I am not slipping back into the persona of the pastor’s kid who knows when to give the right answers.

I am thankful for this moment if it was truly a reality check for me or maybe my professor was just being harsh because he thinks he’s right…. Who knows!