Last Days

I find myself now living in the last days of my sojourn here at Handong.  When you know the date of your departure, the last days seem to lengthen. I finished the reading and marking of my last set of student exam papers and have now submitted my student's grades for the semester.  I'm nearly packed, but I still find myself wondering whether I'll forget something or whether I'm trying to take too much back to the States.

I have distributed out to others nearly two-thirds of the books I had shipped over last August.  I invited my students and colleagues to stop by my office over the past two weeks and select two or three books that they had an interest in reading.  Some students asked me to write a personal inscription in the book they chose.  Others (colleagues on whom I had placed no limit) just took arm-loads. The few that remained were donated to Handong's library.

During these last days, I have also enjoyed the fellowship of both students and colleagues alike who have invited me out to a dinner.  One group of students (several from my Law & Advocacy study group/debate team) treated me to a meal at Hyoam Restaurant last week.  In the course of our dinner conversation, one student asked if he might be permitted to pose a personal question.

Without hesitation, I encouraged him to fire away.  He asked me a question that is often put to students at Handong by their professors.  The answer that is expected, here at Handong, usually involves the description of a long-term plan for addressing some pressing global need that the student believes he has been called to fulfill as his contribution to changing the world.

His question:  What is your vision?  The answer I gave, though, did not fit the expected mold.  I did not have a grand vision of establishing 300 universities around the developing world (this, however, is an example of the scale of vision that students have come to expect from their professors).  Instead, I expressed my desire to be willing to do God's will whatever that might be in the coming days I am given upon this earth.

I admitted that I really did not know, with any degree of confidence, what was lying ahead of me.  I believed that for now, at least, I am to return to my home in the States and continue to fulfill the callings that God has upon my life as a teacher, husband, son, father, grandfather, and student.  I trust that God will lead and provide me with the grace and strength to do what he wills for each day.

I expressed my aspiration in the words that the Apostle Paul used to describe the life of King David.  I said that I will have fulfilled my vision if it can be said by others of me at the end of my life that I "served the purpose of God in my own generation." (Acts 13:36). 

As I now come closer to the last of my days here in Korea (for the time being, at least), I am realizing in a deeper way, I trust, the importance of keeping a willingness to do his will as my singular vision.