Podcaster Nick Loper once confessed: “I thought I liked cashews, until we got some unsalted ones. Turns out I just like salt.”

A similar epiphany happened to me. I thought I liked theology and Bible study. I downloaded sermons, listened to lectures, and read books-too-big-for-backpacks. I even earned a master’s degree from Bethel Seminary.

Many folks bound into seminary with a song on their lips, only to limp away clinging—if they’re lucky—to a fraction of the faith with which they came.

I didn’t lose my faith in seminary.
My faith grew.

Why I found profit while others found loss, I don’t know. Even basic explanations come out sounding patronizing, or like humble-bragging.

Say I point to a simple and impersonal truth, like: seeking God is hard. Notice how this implies that my success came from superior effort: I worked hard enough to overcome the challenge. And notice how this also pins failure to insufficient effort of those others: they were not up to the challenge.

But none of that is true. I doubt I worked harder than anyone.

Me, I blame seminary itself. I don’t mean Bethel Seminary—which I adored—I mean seminary in general. Seminary is doomed to disappoint. You pass through the doors expecting a lively journey, but instead you encounter cryptic scriptures, tedious commentaries, and abstruse debates about how the shape of an accent mark might affect translation. You Betty-Boop into the room expecting a path of rapturous light, but instead it feels like hours and hours of milking flies.

I thought I liked theology. It turns out I just like finding God. I like the gust of relief when I disarm a menacing doubt. I like the swell of euphoria when I comprehend why the good news is actually good—and why it’s actually news. I like the boost of conviction when I come to trust more and more the promises of God.

One promise in particular stokes my levity most. Paul tells the Corinthians:

“For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’.” (2 Corinthians 6:16)

I carried this charming promise with me into seminary. God will dwell with us. We’ll hear him approaching in the cool of the day. We’ll know what we know by pure perception—no Bibles, no theology. Immediate and intimate observation, little more. That charming promise kept tickling me and nudging me throughout my seminary studies.

It also kept my expectations sober. A promise is a pending thing. “God will dwell with us.” That moment still hangs somewhere out of reach, up in the air. We’re not yet there.

For now, while we wait for that great day, our work is more constructive than observational. We build our picture of God in the workshop of our minds. We each cobble together a forensic sketch from imperfect sources. We go to the gospels and study the wild testimonies of unexceptional people, written in languages few of us know. We debate our perspectives with fallible scholars and we propound our pictures against theirs.

Yes, we have the Holy Spirit, but we must strain to hear his whispers and soft guidance. And all of this we do in a world that looks far more demonic than godly.

I’m surprised we find any traces of light at all.

I carry on because I know this work is not the thing itself. I do not expect rapturous light or euphoric theophanies.

I carry on knowing that anything we find on a path toward a great promise will always thump dull relative to our expectations of what’s to come.