Living Letters: David Fisk

Please welcome David Fisk to the blog. My wife and I have grown to be good friends with David and his wife over the past year. We are sad that they will soon be leaving upon graduation, especially since we are growing in our friendship; however, we are thankful and excited about what the Lord is doing in their lives. ~PD
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My name is David Fisk and I’m a 4^th year Covenant student about to graduate in May. After graduation, my wife and I are moving back to SC to start a new RUF work at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC.

It’s a very bittersweet feeling having to say goodbye to Covenant. My time here has been the best and the worst time of my life. It has been horrible and incredible at the same time. If I had to sum up my seminary career, it would be this – maturity through brokenness.

In four years, I’ve had two hospitalizations lasting 10 days total, four ER trips, 10 MRI’s, a spinal tap, two epidurals, countless doctor’s visits, even more medications, physical therapy, laparoscopic surgery, and an eight month bout of Depression. Only one semester out of eight did not have some sort of medical crisis. There were times when I cried, times when I was angry at the Lord, and times when I wanted to drop out and go home. However, the Lord used these things as a cauldron of character formation.

In the times of despair, there was one question that continued to come to my mind – God, don’t you care that I’m hurting this much? I mean – God, why is this happening? God, are you even there? Why aren’t you doing anything? Here’s what I did learn. I learned that you don’t always get to know why suffering happens, but the answer to my questions cannot be that God doesn’t care or that He isn’t doing anything about suffering. It took me a long time to begin understanding that the evidence of God’s care for suffering is Jesus. By looking at the life and death of Jesus in order to save us from our sin, we see God’s willingness to take on Himself the pain and suffering of this sinful world. It shows us just how much He does care. God entered time and space and suffering to redeem the brokenness and to restore the relationship He intended to have with His people from the beginning.

Christian maturity looks at how Christ took on the suffering of the world for one reason – to redeem the world and gain us. Tim Keller taught me that understanding this beautiful truth “brings deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life on earth. We can know that God is truly Immanuel – God with us – even in our worst sufferings" (Tim Keller. The Reason for God, p. 31).

I don’t know if I would choose to go down the same path again because of the difficult trials I have been through. But I know that if I did not endure what I endured, I would not cherish Jesus nor have the maturity and perspective to trust in the Lord like I do now. Even after all the pain, I can still know God does care and the proof of Jesus shows me just how much.