Flying half-way across the country has been bittersweet in ways that I would not have expected. Going over countryside, I get to watch as we pass over all kinds of different geological regions (not to be confused with geographical regions, although we are obviously going over them too). I get to see deserts, forests, rivers running down a steep hillside. I wonder at the obvious signs of streams in the desert. I see sharp edges next to curves. I see a cliff that drops off into dry canyon in such a way that it looks like someone took a giant shovel to it and formed it all at once instead of slowly picking it apart.
All of this reminds me of one of my favorite college courses: physical geology. I got learn about glaciers and fjords. We studied about the ocean floor. I discovered the origin of the oxbow lake. Our professor taught us about the shoreline processes that we would be able to see taking place on our bay all year long. Learning about our local geology was fascinating. I also learned practical advice for the future like why I should never, ever cut out the toe of a slope. Never. And over the years I’ve been able to see where people have not listened to that advice. Oops. What fun it would have been to pursue this course of study further, although it would have meant more math (yuck).
What I also remembered was that I had been timid, weak, and undisciplined. The New Testament advises us to always have an answer when asked about the hope we have in Christ Jesus (1 Peter 3:15). I don’t know that that verse was aimed at how to handle yourself in science class in 1990, but then again, maybe God had let the ApostlePeter see the future. What I do know is that having a firm testimony, even if I never spoke it out loud in class, would have made me feel much more secure in my faith when in the presence of non-believers. But I didn’t bother to learn the way in which God wanted me to speak the Truth. I wanted a nice little world like I had grown up in, where everyone believed the same thing and defending “The Faith” was taken care of by the older men in our circle. I wanted somebody to take care of me and make it easy to go out into the world with my Christianity. I didn’t want to be challenged or have to explain myself. How childish of me.
