The people who prayed me through graduate school included homemakers, staff members of a local food pantry, artists, lawyers, part time church secretaries, state tax employees, retail workers, and so many others.Read more…
Sighs: Suffering, Part 1 (Scholar’s Compass)
Sometimes I have difficulty breathing.Read more…
Finding Christ When You’re Busy, Part 3 (Scholar’s Compass)
We may not always be able to give the biggest percentage of our time to prayer or meditation. But can we give the best of our time to God? Read more…
Finding Christ When You’re Busy, Part 2 (Scholar’s Compass)
Perhaps the time you can make for prayer and meditation right now feels like the widow’s mite—practically nothing on the world’s scale of value. Maybe you only have 15 minutes to give to prayer and Scripture reading at this moment. Maybe you only have 5. Read more…
Finding Christ When You’re Busy, Part 1 (Scholar’s Compass)
Sometimes God calls us to a moment or even a season of life in which time is severely limited. How do we seek Him when we’re busy?Read more…
The Fruit of the Spirit in Academia, Part 2 (Scholar’s Compass)
There is no more relevant place to demonstrate patience with others than the competitive world of the academy. The Spirit’s patience is needed, for example, to answer a hostile questioner during the reading of a paper, or the snide comment of a colleague who believes our work is a waste of time.Read more…
The Fruit of the Spirit in Academia, Part 1 (Scholar’s Compass)
The academic world can be cut-throat, competitive, and harrowing. The constant pressure to publish, to win grants and to achieve tenure are just a few of the tensions that weigh on academics every day. What does it look like to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in such an environment?Read more…
Fall Preview: Scholar’s Call
Emerging scholars often tell us that they don’t know where to start when they begin trying to integrate faith and their subjects. Our goal with Scholar’s Call is to generate a series of documents for each discipline that can serve as springboards or starting points for exploring what it means to integrate Christian theology/spirituality and thoughtful engagement with an academic discipline.Read more…
One Year of Scholar’s Compass/Fall Preview
Today we’re celebrating one year of Scholar’s Compass. We’re also continuing this week’s preview of ESN activities and blog content this year with a glimpse into how Scholar’s Compass will continue this academic year. God has blessed Scholar’s Compass richly this year, providing great content and a solid foundation for growth in community. Read more…
God of humans and testimony (Scholar’s Compass)
Biologists study life processes – perhaps we should be astounded that biologists exist. Science, which explores this universe from the largest scales of astronomy to smaller objects, such as in my own field of microbial genetics, is a remarkable human endeavour. Read more…
God of the Living World
Biologists study life processes – perhaps we should be astounded by them. Planet Earth is a gem of biological activity glistening in the light of our sun, in the midst of a universe that may well be otherwise lifeless.Read more…
God of an Orderly Universe (Scholar’s Compass)
Biologists study life processes – perhaps we should be astounded by a world in which we can study! We live in a remarkable universe, with God’s fingerprints all over. Though undoubtedly marred, nature still appears intricate, dynamic, and perhaps even fine-tuned for life.Read more…
Sailing and the Spirit (Scholar’s Compass)
I’ve been learning to sail this summer. I’ve also been wondering if Jesus was thinking about all the fishermen He knew when He said this. Starting to sail made me pay attention to the wind, and as I’ve done that I’ve found myself understanding these words about the Spirit in a new way. Read more…
Abundance (Scholar’s Compass)
The first time I saw a passionflower I very nearly tripped over my own astonishment. There was something unaccountable about that firework of purple— an unnatural, extravagant beauty. It was the only bloom in an otherwise untended scratch of dirt, and it seemed to be staging a cheerful rebellion against its uninspired surroundings, as if enjoying the irrational pleasure of hurling splendor into the world.Read more…
The Courageous Christian Scholar (Scholar’s Compass)
Often, in the Old Testament, the familiar refrain, “Be strong and courageous,” is given by God to such leaders as Moses and Joshua. Biblical courage is not psycho-babble; it is based on the presence and favor of God, on behalf of His people, and is predicated upon God’s promises in the present concerning His future intervention.Read more…
Diligence in the Life of the Christian Scholar (Scholar’s Compass)
What is diligence? Related English words give us some clues as to what diligence is, words such as: endurance, perseverance, persistence, or to be committed and tenacious. Read more…
Thankfulness and Graduate Exams (Scholar’s Compass)
During preparations for my preliminary exams, the cliché “blessing in disguise” seemed like an accurate description of graduate school. Although I knew that graduate school was a gift from God, at the time, it felt like a big mistake. Read more…
Journey (Scholar’s Compass)
Everything in life bends toward change, which is why I suppose there are so many travel narratives in the Christian Bible. In fact, the world “pilgrimage” in Psalm 84 is more literally translated as “highways” or “paths”—blessed is he whose heart is set on travel. But the truth is, the travel of the pilgrims in Psalm 84 looks nothing like the travel that I’m used to. In my experience, travel is an uncomfortable business, filled with lumpy beds and exhausting days. Read more…
Vocatio Christ: The Contours of Our Callings Part 2 (Scholar’s Compass)
It seemed like the whole world was on fire when C.S. Lewis stepped into the pulpit of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Oxford in the autumn of 1939. Only a few weeks earlier Germany had invaded Poland, provoking declarations of war from Great Britain and France, igniting the great conflagration that would be the Second World War. Across the United Kingdom out of a sense of duty and urgency young men were enlisting in the armed services and citizens were preparing for the war effort. And Lewis, the great Oxford don, had been tasked with addressing a room full of anxious young men beginning their autumn term at Oxford University.Read more…
Loving Our Neighbors Through Research (Scholar’s Compass)
It’s easy to imagine an academic vocation as a solitary one, full of brilliant and prickly eccentrics who publish famous monographs but have no idea who lives on their street. But in addition to reminding me how deeply an academic life can be centered in love of God, the scholars at the Lausanne Creation Care and the Gospel Conference also reminded me how deeply it can be about love of neighbor.Read more…
Hearing God’s Voice in Nature (Scholar’s Compass)
As you begin your work today, what text frames your lens for interacting with colleagues, other members of the university of community, larger networks, your research, the creation itself?Read more…
The Earth is the Lord’s: Worship as Vocation (Scholar’s Compass)
I had an amazing week at the Lausanne Creation Care and the Gospel conference. Many of those present were involved in very active work to care for God’s creation, whether that meant working for a missions organization that helps communities improve agriculture and care for the environment by planting trees, or facilitating Christian academics to partner with local organizations in ecological research.Read more…
Vocatio Christi: The Contours of Our Callings (Scholar’s Compass)
“Follow me.” With these two simple words Jesus turned the worlds of Peter, Andrew, James and John upside down. Jesus called them away from the life that they knew in order to be apprenticed into a new Way, a new Truth, a new Life. He extended this call to Matthew the tax collector, to a rich young ruler, and to many, many more. Some followed. Some didn’t.Read more…
Missio Dei: The Context of Our Callings (Scholar’s Compass)
What, if anything, does my spiritual life have to do with my work life? Better yet, what does my spiritual life have to do with my life’s work? Is my specific vocation incidental or irrelevant to my spiritual formation? Or do these aspects of my life converge somehow? Similarly, are evangelical witness and the integration of faith and scholarship mutually exclusive concerns, one activity being suited to dynamic extroverts and the other to bookish introverts? Or is there a way in which these go together?Read more…