#TheologiansWhoBulldoze
I took my first aptitude test in 8th grade. Having grown up in Guatemala, I was unfamiliar with such tests and felt rather anxious as I filled out that blue-tinted, skinny Scantron test, while sitting in a Bannockburn, Illinois, classroom.
I had no clue at the time what I wanted to be when I grew up. All I knew for certain was two things: I loved soccer and that it was the greatest sport in the world.
But every time that the test asked me whether I preferred mountains or beaches, or whether smooth flat stones were perfect for skipping on a lake to make rippling patterns, or whether the Galapagos Islands lay near the equator, I always answered: “Yes.”
A week later, when we received the results of the test, I read the fateful words at the end of the page:
“You will be a farmer when you grow up.”
It made me laugh out loud at the time because I had no aptitude for being a farmer, nor was I the son of a farmer. I was the son of a missionary and I had the aptitude for goofing around.
I didn’t even have the aptitude for reading books. I didn’t care about books until my sophomore year of college. Books, to my thirteen-year-old self, were dull affairs.
All I ever wanted to do as a child was to muck around with my friends, or build my own fireworks with gun powder that I’d stolen from existing firecrackers, or dig holes through piles of dirt, or wander about aimlessly in nature.
A friend of my wife’s chuckled incredulously at the thought of me “managing” twenty-one acres of land. She couldn’t imagine how I could be useful in such a context. If I’m perfectly honest with myself, neither could I.
But I’ve decided to do three things in the face of this land that God has entrusted to us: 1) to not be afraid, 2) to not do anything stupid, and 3) to not be too proud to ask for help.
So that’s what I did. I asked for help learning how to drive a bulldozer, and after a few tries, I got the swing of it. And then I carved a path down to the creek.
And, yes, I had the time of my life.
I’m coming alive in a way that’s long been dormant and I’ve got all the time in the world to figure out how to be a #TheologianWhoBulldozes.
