I'm currently working on a post (or two) about the theme of the Fear of the LORD, but in the meantime, here is a personal anecdote about my experience choosing to attend Taylor University back in 2007. Perhaps you'll find it entertaining if not enlightening. Look at it as sort of a quick update of the last three or so years for those of you who need that refresher, and perhaps as a "Oh, so that's how that happened..." for those of you who don't.
It was a balmy afternoon in late May. My home state of Wisconsin is not known for its warm weather, but this spring had been particularly kind to us and towards the end of May, nature decided it was time for summer to come in full force. I had been accepted to Taylor and two other schools and it had literally come down to the final day for one of them, and I needed to make a decision. I had been praying about it, asking parents, and people at church that I respected; even some of my friends had weighed in. I was feeling nothing—no pull towards any one over another—and it didn’t help that I liked all of them. So I sat there at the kitchen table with my parents, considering the pros and cons, and generally asking God that He would direct my choice, whether I felt that direction or not. I called to mind the visit that I had made to Taylor on that freezing February morning a few months earlier, and how I felt like this was a place that students and faculty alike strove to do their utmost in their fields for God, something I found very important in a college—it couldn’t just be “Christian” in name or practice if it neglected academics and scholarship, but it also couldn’t be so focused on scholarship that it lost the reason we study to begin with: Our creator, sustainer, and Lord; Jesus Christ. Taylor, I recalled, had shown me something few other schools had shown me; a good balance of the two, and an understanding of what Christian scholarship should look like.
I also had in mind that May afternoon that I would like to keep my options open to other majors. I was planning at that time to major in music composition, having played piano for 12 years, and having composed for nearly half that. However, I wasn’t sure that that was where God wanted me, and to restrict myself to music alone (as one of my college possibilities would have done) shed some new light on the decision. So, on what seemed to be a whim (in my mind which wanted God to light up a neon sign and say, “Here! This is what I want you to do.”), I chose Taylor, but God in His overwhelming providence has been reinforcing to me every day since that decision that He had wanted me here all along, and that making that decision was good for me. Since coming to Taylor, I very quickly learned that the music department was not where God wanted me, but instead, that He wanted enter the Biblical Studies department instead. That, by contrast, was the easiest decision I have ever made, and at the same time is another one for which I have no regrets. I love every class I take within my major, and with every day I feel like I am learning more about God and His word and plan on a deeper level than I would have been able to otherwise. I am currently in my fourth semester of Hebrew, and am going to start Greek next fall.
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