The First Thing You Do

I'm about to fulfill my first real function at APNTS. In 39 minutes I am proctoring the Bible content exam. This makes me nervous in a way I cannot explain, because I am not taking the exam myself.

Anyhow, I am still super-excited about classes beginning on Thursday. There are still a good number of preparatory items: ID pictures, finishing registration, revising my syllabi some more, continuing to write lectures (though on the last I'm a good ways ahead already), thinking about NEXT semester's classes, communicating with some folks back in the States, and on and on. I never quite understood how much there is for a professor to do. I had a general idea, what from having observed some of my teachers run hither and yon all over the place, but I didn't really get it until now. And the semester hasn't even gotten started yet! :-O

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster, just having come out of the station. Chuck-chuck-chuck-chuck-rattle-rattle-chuck-chuck goes the chain that pulls the coaster cars up the first hill. Everybody's excited, a few people are scared, and we're all wondering who's going to be the first to lose the chili dogs she just ate. It's probably going to be me, I suppose. Chuck-chuck-chuck-rattle-chuck-chuck. I can see the loops and spins and corkscrews were about to be hurtled through. The potential energy is being built up...and once we get to the top of this hill we're going to be relying on gravity for propulsion forward...and downward. There might be a few more hills, but none of them as high as this one, and this is the only one with a chain. We've been given all the preparation, we've been given the resources, we've been given the assignments, and now it's time to run with them.

I have been waiting for many years for this opportunity. I am nervous, but I am confident that God has called me here, God has placed me in this place in order to carry out this purpose. Somehow, that goes a long way toward counteracting the nervousness that I feel as I get ready to step into this formal assignment. There is a lot of work to do, and every day there will be more, and every week there will be more, and every month there will be more...

Chuck-chuck-chuck-chuck-rattle-rattle-chuck-chuck-chuck.