I've now finished about half of my academic curriculum at SPU in Marriage & Family Therapy. I have, however, about two years to go including all the impending practicum and internship hours. This augmenting of my ministry calling and career has been an inspiring, though sometimes tiring, experience.
One overarching insight about being a "therapist": it will be the first thing I have ever done professionally that primarily serves a temporal interest--a value in "this life" rather than for "eternal life." Everything else I've ever done in the ministry--evangelism, teaching, counseling, training, discipling--has pointed more towards eternal things: how and in what condition we get to heaven.
And so this endeavor has helped me see the world through the lens of most of our members--doing the kind of work (accounting, engineering, computing, teaching, whatever) that does not directly connect to the life that is to come, but rather serves the temporal times in which God has placed us for now. It's different. But it's normal.
Perhaps then, indirectly, we labor for our own stewardship, which has eternal value for our character, and potentially eternal value for those we serve and work with.
Shalom,
Scott
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Scott,
Your posting provides an interesting insight into the thought of a minister for those of us stuck in the "temporal" realm. I have been thinking a lot lately about time and how vastly different our concept is from God's. Our lives are so short compared to the universe. A million years is nothing, and yet I cannot comprehend it. My daily life is lived in segments of weeks, days, or even hours. Spending so much of my life focused on "insignificant" time frames makes me forget about the only time scale that does matter: eternity.
I appreciate that I have ministry staff that can help me pull my focus off of the path at my feet, and gaze eagerly towards heaven.
Tom
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