Grand Plans

Going off to college, I was still waiting for God to tell me what to do, but I was pretty sure that it would eventually involve becoming a martyr. People flock around martyrs, even if they didn't even know their name in life. Since I had accomplished so little for Him in life, surely my death would be the spark that ignites the next great wave of converts. Unfortunately, most Christian martyrs these days are missionaries, and I had already been informed by the Voice of God (aka my parents) that I could never become one.

Actually, becoming a missionary was not my first choice. I wanted to do something BIG for God, but there were always so many missionaries that it seemed pretty ordinary. I was actually fairly unenthused about the idea, wanting something bigger. I'd already decided that God was not to be found at church: they were a bunch who liked to talk big, but when it came to getting anything done they'd rather sit around and criticize each others' fashion choices. If I'd been born rich, I would give everything away to feed the poor or something, but I wasn't. I read about Francis of Assisi and Henry David Thoreau. God, who'd created the world and everything in it, should be found out THERE, in the world of His creation.

So I created a little fantasy and started building on it. I looked at some of the larger evangelical organizations that were in existence at the time: ICR, Focus on the Family, and their ostensibly non-minister mogul founders. I visualized the organization I was to found, a merging of all other christian organizations into a single unit, a single new church. A new sect.

It would have been a traveling sect, more of a cult, really. We'd move from place to place like Paul and the apostles were supposed to have done, washing our feet of the places who didn't accept us. It would have been a return to the faith of the 1st century: mere Christianity, nothing added nor taken away. I would start as a single, lone traveler and slowly add to my flock, attracting followers until we were a force that could be recognized.

I never mentioned my plan to anyone. It wasn't something you could really plan to happen, anyway. God would have to make it happen, I would only be His vehicle. I wonder how many others have had plans similar to mine, with no strategy, no training, no organizational skills.

I picked Wheaton on instinct. I didn't spend much time evaluating schools. I wasn't going to pick a christian school at all at first. The brochure spoke to me, just like it was designed to do. I felt called, just like I was supposed to. I thought things would be different at Wheaton. At they were, to a certain extent, but I started learning things there, things about the church.

For one thing, I started learning that not all Christians believed the same thing. They didn't always agree on finer points of theology that I thought were well established. I learned that there couldn't be one all-embracing ideology because there were too many differences. Ideas that might have been considered too forward-thinking and radical for some might have seemed the obvious course of action to others.

Something else I learned: for all their differences in opinion, church people are the same anywhere you go. They never relaxed. They didn't seem capable of blowing off steam. They put so much effort into being nice, as if it were the only thing that mattered. And they were rich. I don't mean culturally or spiritually rich, I mean physically wealthy. There were a few who had grown up on the streets and where there on scholarships, but no one I met was like me: lower middle class. They didn't know what it was like to live on food stamps or reduced school lunches. They'd never been envious of a friend who had more toys than they. I met those who thought that giving a little money to charity was enough to make up for all the workers they underpaid. I developed a chip on my shoulder.

In the end, I'm glad I went to Wheaton, I learned things there. It was like a trip to the better side of town, seeing how the other half lived. I suppose I would have seen the same thing no matter what school I attended, but Wheaton taught me that Christians were no different. They weren't interested in the lifestyle I proposed, one free from material goods, where we traveled from place to place with no fixed address, living on the Word of God.

I had already suspected that God was not to be found in Church. Now I was sure. But I was still determined to live up to His plan for me.