Dear Friend of BCS,
I wonder how many of you who are reading this letter would say that your life has unfolded just the way you thought it would. As I reflect on this, I don’t think I know anyone whose life path has been clear, straight, obvious, or predictable. Mine certainly hasn’t been. If you had asked me when I was a teenager what I would be doing when I was 60, I wouldn’t have had the foggiest notion what to say. I couldn’t have known that the Lord would break through to my sinful life and make me a new creature. As a small town Minnesota boy I couldn’t have known that I would one day meet a cute Wisconsin girl in Madison and get married there. I couldn’t have known that my vocation would be higher education. I couldn’t have known that I would one day begin attending Bethlehem Baptist Church, sitting under the teaching of John Piper. What an amazing plan the Lord has had for my life! I can only see that in retrospect, however. In his mercy and wisdom, the Lord does not let us see the details of our earthly lives in advance. He knows that we cannot handle knowing such details and that the too-great temptation would be to trust in our knowledge of the future rather than in God’s sovereignty over it. In his gracious, loving, and merciful ways, the Lord leads us every step of the way through life, and he asks only that we trust him to do this.
While thinking about this truth, the Lord brought to mind a hymn from my youth which addresses this idea:
He leadeth me, O blessed thought!
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
Refrain:
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful foll’wer I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.
Sometimes ’mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, o’er troubled sea,
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.
Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.
And when my task on earth is done,
When by Thy grace the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.
What a beautiful picture of the Lord’s leading all through our lives—from the beginning to the glorious end that awaits us across the Jordan.
Loving his leading,
Tim Tomlinson
President, Bethlehem College & Seminary
Prayer Requests
- Please pray for our upcoming commencement ceremony. We have 47 students graduating this year—the most in our brief history! Please pray that this would be a powerful, meaningful service of dedication and worship.
- Pray for our students. These last days of the semester (and year) are often very difficult. Pray for perseverance and stamina and for God’s grace to be poured out in extra measure upon them.
- We ask you to pray for our fiscal year-end finances. We still need to raise $175,000 to make our budget by June 30th. Please pray for a gracious and generous outpouring of gifts from those who love the vision and mission of this school.
- Please pray also for our year-end planning. This is the time of year when we begin to look ahead to the next school year and all that needs to be done to be ready for it come August.