So I had a moment Sunday: it had been building really, and you know it was one of my best, shining moments– the end of the semester is particularly adept at bringing out those kinds. There I was, sitting in church, completely over it all: school, Paris, everything. Hitting like a cement balloon that sunk further as I tried to sing songs and just rest in His presence – I found myself mad, tired and wondering, Why did I ever want to be here again? You know there’s an issue when I am no longer happy to be in this city.

What I really was tired of was a debate I often have with myself over graduate school. You see, graduate school  as an experience demands much of your time and focus. Like a hungry beast, it can feel ferocious as it covers up your days and life and at least in my program, discussion is based around LOTS of theory. Names like Bordieu, Foucault, Durkheim, and dozens more (not to mention Marx and Freud) – all theorists who are famous for discussing why people throughout the history of the world have acted in certain ways, how we’ve ended up as the civilization we are today,  how and why we hope for things, what drives us, what we long for – lace conversation as their theories are dissected and discussed. And while their ideas may not be wrong or bad, I often find myself sick of reading these “great” theorists and tired of discussing them for days and hours and then writing papers about them for more days and hours

I’m not saying ideas are a bad thing – certainly not. Knowledge is good, but apart from true wisdom from God, it’s futile. If we all create theories and call them truth without a standard to measure them against, it’s all relative. I’m tired of discussing all these theorists because, despite some of them contributing reasonably interesting ideas to society, they are mere men and women. Vapors in the wind. I’m tired of contributing to a conversation in which most of the ideas make no space for Jesus, see Jesus as simply a historical character or even worse, just a man with a few good ideas.

Most especially because He IS the idea. He Is the reason as well as the answer to all the theories and questions as to why people do or don’t do something; it is all tied up in whether or not they know and love Jesus. When you know Him, your heart is different. Freer and fuller. And “life’s questions” don’t hold the same gravity they did before. I often think while sitting in class, This is a great exercise and all, but really- these are just thoughts from men who are just as helpless in life as the rest of us. It’s all about Him and what I love is that despite these mansions of theory we, (man kind) built around ourselves to explain the world instead of allowing the Creator God to teach us, He remains close by. These theorists, these ideas that men have debated for decades and centuries, God is on the edge, hovering, just waiting to be invited in to rescue and restore what has gone awry.

So I had my not-so-happy-day. And yes, part of all of this came from a weariness and knowledge that work still has to be done before I can go home, but mostly, I think there’s a growing anger inside me towards all the lies that have been weaved in this world to shield and distract people from the truth of Christ. What do you think?