Loving Campus...

Spring has sprung here in East Tennessee, and it is beautiful. I'm told it'll probably get cold again before it warms up for good, but today's sunny high of 65 was a beautiful taste of things to come. I was able to move all of my 1-on-1's for the day outside to the grassy amphitheater (one of UT's few green spaces) and pretty much stayed planted there all day. I have a sunburn on my right arm and right-side of my face to prove it...but it was definitely worth it.

Things have been going very well this semester...better than I could have ever expected. The best part is that I can't trace this to anything I have done or anything I've changed. I'm bringing just as much of my mess to ministry as I was before. But through my broken efforts, I am seeing God at work. Relationships are growing, and with those deepening relationships are coming more and more opportunities for gospel conversations. I've had opportunities to go through books of the Bible with a few guys, and I'll also be going through Tim Keller's Reason for God with a few others. After a difficult first semester, I am seeing fruit develop where I thought there would be none, and I am learning more (about God and about myself) in this short period of time than I think I've ever learned before.

A couple weeks ago, there was a day very similar to today. The sun was shining and the weather was beautiful. Meetings had been going very well, I'd just had a great conversation, read an encouraging passage in Scripture, and I was walking back across campus to my car with a spring in my step. As I looked around, it hit me..."I love the University of Tennessee."

The campus that originally looked like a vast and confusing concrete jungle now had this warm aura of home. I loved the students I knew through RUF, but I felt this great desire to get to know the students I was passing on the sidewalk...to sit down and talk with them and hear their story. I just loved the institution in general, and felt this longing to see it redeemed...I even began to warm up to the highlighter orange that is the school's color. Basically, I was beginning to feel less like a visitor and more like a part of the University of Tennessee, and as part of the University, I had desire to serve it and see it transformed by the love of Christ.

This was all well and good.

And then, a few days later, the clouds rolled in. It was quite a bit colder, and the gray skies were spitting out this nasty mist of rain. As I drove away from campus, the warm aura of home was gone. Returned was the feeling of otherness, of separateness. I didn't want to hear the story of the guy who just walked in front of my car, I wanted him to hurry up and get out of my way (and I strongly considered honking.) My meetings that day hadn't been terrible, but they hadn't been what I was hoping for. I walked away feeling I either hadn't said enough, or that I said too much. I just wanted to go home, sit on my couch, and hibernate for a few days.

Where had that love gone? Just days ago, you couldn't have dragged me out of Knoxville if you had tried. I was right where I was supposed to be, and couldn't have been happier. How quickly that had shifted to wanting to escape, leave the "concrete jungle" behind, and curl up in my living room for the weekend. I didn't dislike the University exactly, but that love had been replaced with a distinct indifference.

Was it possible that my "love" was nothing more than the combination of sunshine and a stroked ego? How did I even define a "good meeting"? Was it really because I felt the gospel was applied and Christ was at the center of the discussion, or was it because I felt accepted...even admired? Was I seeking my own glory and affirmation rather than pointing to the Redeemer? And it's certainly true that I'm a sucker for a sunny day...

Did it really only take a couple not-as-great meetings for that love to dissipate? Could all of my feelings about an institution the size of UT really hinge upon a couple instances where I didn't feel as liked and affirmed as I wanted to be? Sadly, it seemed that was the case.

That love for Rocky Top has since returned, and I do love the University of Tennessee. As God has worked on my heart this year, I have seen that love develop, and I've seen it grow. I do love the students here. I love the ones I know, and I want to get to know more...especially those who feel lonely, rejected, or who don't know the love of Christ. I long to see this great institution redeemed, to see God get the glory with every yell of "Go Vols!" Yes, I love UT. However, I'm seeing that that love is still shallower than I thought. It's still tied in many ways to how I am feeling loved at any given time.

I am praying that God will continue to grow and foster that love in my heart, and that it will be a love that is rooted in the gospel rather than my self-image. As the gospel becomes more real to me, I pray that my love for and desire to serve the students of UT will be the natural response to how God first loved me. Only then will my love be immune to the daily whims of ministry, the ups and downs from one meeting to the next. As I grow to understand the love that Christ had for me when I was His enemy, my love for the University of Tennessee will be less and less dependent on what UT is doing for me.

This is just one of the things I feel like God has been teaching me through the internship...what an experience it has been. It is hard. It's very hard, actually. But I'm so encouraged and excited to see the ways God is at work, and I pray that I can continue to be an instrument in His Hands as He accomplishes His purposes on the campus of UT-Knoxville.

I ask your prayers specifically for the intern placement process that is currently going on. Both of my co-interns here at UT, Anne and Mary Beth, will be moving on next year. Anne will be getting married this summer and moving to Jackson, MS, and Mary Beth plans to attend seminary. It'll be very sad to lose them here in Knoxville, and they will be missed, although we're very excited to see how God will be at work in each of their lives. Keep them in your prayers as that transition nears, and also be in prayer over the next couple of weeks as a new female intern is selected and placed here at UT. Pray for her, whoever she may be, as she finishes up school this year and begins the fundraising process...and then the move to Knoxville in 5-6 months!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and continued support. I'll post more specific information about everything going on in Tennessee RUF soon, but in the meantime, you can check out our website at http://www.utk.ruf.org. If you haven't been there before, definitely give it a look. You'll find pictures, events, announcements, and more detailed information about what RUF is in general, and what it looks like specifically at UT.

Resting in His Promises,

Stephen

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:7-11 ESV)