A Letter to My Students

Posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

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My Dear Students,

I just wanted to write you a letter at the end of the semester to give you a small bit of encouragement.  Some of you I know well, some of you not so well, but I have prayed for you all this semester and know that you have faced burdens not of your own making or choosing.

When difficult times come, and let’s not kid ourselves this semester has been difficult; I find it helpful to remember a few things.  Perhaps you will find them helpful as well.  First, as clichéd as it may seem I have to remember that God is in control.  If I teach Calvinism in the classroom and preach it from the pulpit then I must be willing to live it out in my life.  I wish I could answer for you the question of why God has caused (yes, I said caused) these things to happen, but I don’t know.  I am not sure that I will ever know this side of heaven.  I do know, however, that he is the one who is driving the bus and that I am just the passenger.  This gives me great confidence because if there is an accident, it wasn’t my fault (as long as I wasn’t trying to wrest control of the bus away from the driver like Kramer on Seinfeld).

A second thing that I find helpful is to realize that this is not the last difficult conflict that I will go through.  I have been through some tough ones.  I was a student here at the school when the vast majority of the students were threatening to walk out.  God protected us.  I was working here when a fellow worker was arrested for something that a person working at a seminary should never be arrested for.  God protected us.  I have been here this semester, trying to do my best to work on in the midst of the difficulties and I have been certain of one thing.  God will protect us.  We are sometimes called to go through conflict.  As Peter tells us, it is the fire God uses to purify us.  We can be thankful for it.

Third, learn the lessons that this semester has for you.  Many of you will be involved in conflicts in your own church.  I pray that they will not be as difficult or as wide-ranging as this one.  Think back to this time and remember that there are lessons to be learned.  C. S. Lewis said “God whispers to us through our pleasures and shouts to us through our pain.  Pain is the megaphone he uses to rouse a sleeping world.” There are lessons for all of us in this, learn them now or learn them later but take my word for it; now is easier.

Fourth, allow me to apologize for any way that I have been less than caring or Christ like during the semester.  We all have our failures and I certainly have had mine.  Grace is a wonderful thing.  The great thing about the calendar is that you can tear yesterday off, start on today and look forward to tomorrow.  As my father used to tell me “you can’t saw sawdust, move on to new wood.”

I want to let you know that the faculty and staff here love you dearly and we will make certain that you are treated fairly or more than fairly on all of your exams.  Please don’t worry that you will be shortchanged study time or exam reviews.

Lastly, remember the words of Charles Simeon, the minister who was hated by his congregation for more than thirteen years for no other reason than that he had been the one chosen to pastor their church.  For thirteen years they would not come to hear him preach nor let him into their homes.  Simeon stayed on at that church and eventually won over those people.  When asked, as an old man, why he had stayed with such difficult people he replied, “Brother, we must not mind a little suffering for the sake of our Lord Jesus.”

For the Lamb,

Dr.  Sam
1 Peter 2:23