Hey everyone. So on Monday April 2, 2012, we had our first CCF large group meeting of the term. Our very own professor John Dabiri spoke to us about how, as a Christian, we ought to prioritize what we do (in terms of choosing b/w academics and Christian-related activities--it's a topic a lot (I dare say all) of us have struggled with at some point in our lives or are currently struggling with right now.
In the first hour we read some passages and he elaborated on some of the spiritual principles from those passages, and then in the second hour we went into a Q&A/Discussion format where everyone got to talk a bit and ask questions. Read the full post to get the full picture :)
(This is my first time posting, so please forgive me if the notes I took are not so well written. Feel free to ask me any questions or give any feedback/criticism. God bless!)
In the time
during the bible, the people valued wealth and having children. Nowadays, for
us, it’s generally education, your ability to do research, etc. So we’ll look
at Genesis 22:1-18 Abraham and Isaac. Isaac is Abraham’s only son born from
Sarah, so Isaac = incredibly precious to Abraham. God tests Abraham to see who
he loves more, the gift or the giver.
What was
the mindset for Abraham? Some people may argue that Abraham doesn’t love Isaac,
thus he’s willing to use him as sacrifice, but that doesn’t make sense based on
the context—Abraham obviously has to love Isaac. Let’s look at Hebrews
11:17-19; He feared God more than he loved his son, and he had faith in God’s
promised to the point where he believed that God can even raise his son from
the dead. He loves his son, but he loves the one who gave him his son even
more.
It doesn’t
make sense for God to make that promise and kill off Isaac. Similarly, it
doesn’t make sense for God to call us to Caltech and have us fail. He brings us
to Caltech or w/e good school to make us excellent. Thus, ultimately, we should
follow God’s calling. At the same time, realize that He’s not asking us in
every single case to go to bible study instead of going to work in the lab or
something.
Mark 10:17-31
The rich young man made the choice to follow the logical thing: money. He chose
money over Jesus, while Abraham chose
Focus on
verse 29: “…no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father
or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a
hundred times as much in
this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and
fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” So if we
pick Christ over the “logical choice” (eg. study 30 more minutes or go to prayer
meeting), then He will bless us. He will not make us fail. And we should except
that God knows more than we do, and trust him. (see Isaiah 55:8-9)
Matthew
6:25-34 Do not worry. Seek first the Kingdom
of God kingdom of God
So if
you’re choosing b/w finishing a problem set at 4am or spending time w/ God when
you haven’t spent time with him for the whole day/week, think on this when you
make your decision.
Isaiah
55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts.” This passage has been huge encouragement for Dabiri back when he was
in college. We may think we know something (esp. since we’re logical
scientists) but God’s thoughts are higher. It’s a straightforward choice, it’s
not an easy choice, but it’s straightforward.
Dabiri back
in grad school would go to West Covina 5-6 times a week for ministry stuff
(takes one hour to drive there), and it got to the point where he had to
reassess whether or not this was something he should do with his time. Then he
decided to meet up w/ some Christians at Caltech instead and shaved off some
time from the 1hr drive to Covina …(I
think he said something like this?)
Philippians
4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble,
whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is
admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Sometimes you’re choosing b/w chocolate or vanilla, two good things, God will
be happy with both. In those situations where it’s “either or” then it’s fine
to go to whichever one. Do not be wrought by guilt if you end up saying no to
one in order to go to the other.
Remember
that God brought you here not to get you half-way there but to bring you to
completion. This success that you’re going to have demands that you make the first choice of choosing God first. It
may seem like you’re giving yourself a disadvantage/ falling behind, but you’re
not.
So those were some spiritual principles which Dabiri wanted
to share with us. The rest of the time was spend in a discussion/Q&A
format. Some brothers and sisters gave some personal examples where they had to
make choices between academics and Christian-related activities:
Peter B
choosing whether or not to go to a prayer meeting. And he’d go to the prayer
meeting and it’d turn out that the next day the problem sets take half as long
as he’d thought they would and the essays would just write themselves.
On the
other hand, Robb sometimes chooses to go to a [prayer meeting, bible study,
etc.] instead of doing homework in order to put off homework. In the back of
his mind he may have been thinking “I’m hoping that God wants me to do this, so
I’ll go do this now and homework afterward.” And in the end the work doesn’t
get done.
It is
irresponsible for us to not be diligent w/ our own work. Doing so is like
burying out talents—both literally and figuratively (see parable of the talents
Matthew 25:14-30) Our situation is like that of a simple harmonic oscillator
(eg. pendulum) where we have to be careful not to swing to the end of [neglecting
our work] or to the opposite end of [idolizing our work].
Lori shared
about how she was originally choosing between studying theology and studying
science. After deciding to go to Caltech, she wanted to make the most of where
she ended up (I think it was something like this?) so she’s kind of decided to
choose the increasingly difficult majors. How do you choose between doing
something super difficult or… --Because we don’t want to bury out talents.
Dabiri’s
response to this was that the subset of people in this world who have this kind of scientific training (in a Tech school)
and also love God is a very small group of people. This is very rare and very
special. We are (or will be) in a position where we can reach out to groups of
people and impact those people who would otherwise not hear the gospel b/c
there wouldn’t be the people to reach out to them. Therefore, it doesn’t really
matter whether you’re choosing to go into chemistry or chemE, because both will
allow us to reach out to nonChristians in either chem or chemE. It’s kind of
the vanilla/chocolate analogy, both are good choices. Don’t worry too much
about “what to major in” if you’re choosing or in terms of difficulty/reputation/etc.
David H
asks, Dabiri said “God did not bring you to Caltech to fail”, but how do you
know if God brought us to Caltech in the first place?
Dabiri’s
response (the end portion of his response. I didn’t get the beginning): the
premise is that God has called you. If he has called you, then he has not
called you here to fail.
Steven:
When God calls you to a certain place, it might not be for a reason that you
expect. (eg. originally think that you’re called somewhere to spread the gospel,
but that’s not necessarily why God has called you there (maybe it’s for you to
grow?))
Dabiri:
expanding on previous pt, the road you take won’t be just sunshine and daisies;
in parable of the rich man, it says we’ll gain more and persecution. So it won’t be like we come to Caltech and get a
4.0, but it’ll be hard. Think of Daniel and his friends, they ended up
excelling even though they wouldn’t eat the king’s food and they underwent
persecution. It won’t be health and wealth, God says that this is a cross that
we’re carrying.
Peter: [shared
verse about Spirit interceding for us] we don’t really know what we ought to be
praying for or what we ought to be caring for, but God will steer us the right
way.
Dabiri:
Prioritize God firstàGod will make us prosper and successful by his definition, not our definition.
Dai Wei
asks are there any exercises and such that’ll help you…
Reading the
word. When interacting w/ others, it’s very easy to get competitive and wanting
to be the best. But try to be generous. Spending more time with God, later he
would work on problem sets w/ people instead of by himself. Pulls you out of
the rut of thinking I’m the center of focus. Galations 2:20 says “Not I but
Christ” It’s not me being advanced, but me as
a vessel of Christ Jesus. Having that mindset really changes your
priorities. If we try to say we’ll do something that’ll advance the gospel (eg.
going to MIT and spread the gospel to all those MITers) Is that God saying it
or is that us trying to use God as a puppet saying it. The main point he’s
trying to make is to have that generous mindset.
Elijah
shares his testimony of how he came to Caltech. He had a dream of being at
Caltech, so he thought that must be the place he’ll go. So he didn’t spend much
time with God and focused mainly on transferring into Caltech and focusing on
hw and student government and clubs and whatnot. After failing to transfer for
two years, he didn’t know what to expect anymore and so he didn’t do anything
academic-wise to apply (just a few more classes, the essays and everything else
where basically the same) and he focused a bit more on prayer and daily
devotionals. Then the third time he applied, he got in, and so it was
completely God and not him.
God can
definitely work through our emotions (we “feel” God is telling us to do
something) but God can also equally well work through our thoughts. Sometimes
we can label something as God but it’s really just our own feelings. You should
remember to keep your brains on.
Or maybe we
have the problem where we focus too much on thoughts. It’s a challenge we might
end up depending too much on our mind rather than depending on God. When the
Holy Spirit works, he may work through emotions, thought, spirit…
Reading the
word will teach us to rely on God instead of relying on just our feelings and
thoughts. Reading the bible ends up teaching us how to think and feel…(?) If
there’s something we’re wondering about, it’s in the bible—it just might be in
the form of a spiritual principle or maybe it’s on another page that we just
didn’t read yet.
Delight
yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. It’s not
that He’ll give you what you want, but He will give you what your want will be.
If we seek first his kingdom, everything will follow.
And if we
become in tune with what He wants, then we will
get what we want. :)
We should
not limit how God communicates with us.
(Topic
change) story of the rich man; it’s not what you have a lot of, but what you
hold dear to your heart and place above Jesus. It’s not bad to have money, but
it’s bad when money has you. So maybe for us, it would be that he asks us to
give up our intellect. Jesus called the young man just like he called everyone
else (after you sell your belongings and give to the poor, then come and follow
me).
How do we
find our call? It may be just as hard to find our call as it is to live that
call. There is that challenge w/ [is something really hand-wavy? then that must
be our call] vs. [this is logical so it must be my call] (eg. I’m good at math
so I’ll be a math major). Sometimes that call will be made clear to us just by
reading the scripture and praying and being attuned to God.
Be attuned
not only w/ Christ but w/ one another. Perhaps asking a Christian friend some
question may actually be super valuable, b/c perhaps God will speak to you
through that person.
We can all
work along as a group where we can support each other and ultimately we can
share the gospel w/ people; it’s a long-term thing and not something short-term
like being a pastor where you get people being saved every week. It might be
kind of a challenge since our skills are not as clear in terms of how they can
forward His kingdom compared to someone doing ministry, but they’re all
important.
How do you
connect w/ someone who doesn’t share some skill you have? Eg. you say it’ll all
be fine, but they say of course it will for you b/c you’re smarter than me, for
instance. (response was something like: plant the seeds while you have their
ear?)
How do you
answer some questions that are really technical and not something
simple/straightforward like “who’s Jesus?” We have finite minds trying to
interpret an infinite God. Sometimes it’s fine to bring that person w/ the
questions to talk to someone who does have the answers, but if it’s just a
matter of coming to the “more logical conclusion” then that’s completely off
b/c we’re saved by faith and grace, and we should not try to “win an argument”
b/c that goes against our salvation by faith.
And if
someone cracks jokes about/ bashes Christianity, and they’re not in the mood to
listen, and speaking up may not be affective, you can try to revisit it with
them one-on-one and continue the conversation and (main point) planting that
seed in their mind when they’re more open to it.
What if
that happens w/ a professor (so we’re in a subordinate position). Don’t pick a
fight w/ the professor, but you can very respectfully disagree.
Understand
that a lot of people have been hurt by Christians/ “Christians”. One of the
best things to do is to get to know them one-on-one and have a real
relationship w/ them.
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