When life gets busy and stressful, the logical thing for us as Christians to do is to turn to the Lord, who promises us rest and comfort. As sinful, fiercely independent sinners, we often tend to try to refill our cups with anything but Jesus before finally coming to him exhausted and discouraged. I’ve seen this time and time again in my own life, especially when I’m juggling responsibilities; it’s easy to fill a Jesus-shaped and sized hole in my heart with anything but Jesus.
Being at FLBC, I find the community among the student body and the support of the faculty and staff to be hugely influential and powerful in pointing me back to Christ. Coming in with the goal of increasing my knowledge of the Word and growing spiritually, I had no idea that when I came to FLBC as a student that I was signing up to join one of the greatest and most tight-knit communities I’ve ever had the joy to be a part of. As my professors encourage me to learn more and dive into the Word, my fellow students and friends are encouraging me in our daily lives together. We are living in community together, praying with and over one another, reading the Word together, holding one another accountable, and having intentional conversations with one another about theology, as well as just general life issues. As I’ve wrestled through various topics on what I believe and how that affects my daily life—I am a firm believer that our theology dictates our doxology, or worship of God—I have found the community at FLBC to be a huge blessing in my life.
In Exodus 33:14, God promises us that His presence goes with us, and He gives us rest. I truly believe that one of the places of rest he’s given me is FLBC. I’ve come to know and love campus as a place of peace and a retreat into the Word and the presence of God. God has drawn near to me in so many ways during my time here, as I’ve had multiple periods of wrestling with certain spiritual topics. Last semester, I took an exegetical class through the Book of Romans—by far one of my favorite classes. As we worked through the book in class, we got to chapter nine, which follows up the incredible gospel promises of Romans 8 with some seemingly pretty harsh doctrines about the sovereignty of God and the hardening of the hearts of man. I had such a hard time reconciling these truths with the promises of God’s love and desire to redeem and preserve His people found just one chapter prior. I came to realize and understand that God’s character, no matter what I might think, never contradicts itself. He is infinitely just and sovereign, just as He is infinitely loving and merciful.
Had I been studying this passage outside of the context of Bible college, would I have come to the same conclusion eventually? Probably, but it’s much easier and more comforting to have had such a loving and intentional community around me as I wrestled with this topic. FLBC has been one of the greatest blessings God has given me, not only as a place to wrestle with deep theological topics and understand the truth of God’s character as revealed in His Word, but also as a place to rest in the joy of community and intentional fellowship with a body of like-minded believers.
Abigail Utecht [FLBC sophomore] is a member of Shiloh Free Lutheran, Black Hawk, S.D.
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