Comparisons

I've been struck lately by a number of similarities between life as a Christian and life as a D.Phil. student. I offer these reflections, not as principles I've mastered, but as things I want to remember, in both capacities.

1) It's all about the long haul.

Success for the Christian means remaining strong to the end, by the grace and power of God. Success for the D.Phil. student means finishing one's dissertation, which cannot be written in a day.

2) There are disappointments, temptations, and difficulties along the way.

It's not for nothing that the Christian life is compared to a race and a battle. These metaphors transfer easily to thesis writing.

3) The part that counts is the part that nobody except God sees.

Robert Murray McCheyne said "What a man is, alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more." On the Day of Judgement, righteous appearances, church attendance, and even miracles will count for nothing. The only thing that will matter then is whether or not a person has been justified by faith in Christ.

For the D.Phil. student, what matters is not the often-practiced soundbite that one spins off over coffee when asked "So what are you working on?" What matters is not the number of seminars you attend or the number of classes you teach. In the end, the only thing that counts is producing a completed dissertation, the fruit of thousands of hours alone in the library.

4) "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

For the Christian, the main thing is the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and him crucified. This encompasses even the D.Phil., but in a very limited professional sense, the main thing for the D.Phil. student is research. Not teaching, not seminars, not classes. Research. It's very easy and very dangerous in either sphere to allow something else (perhaps even a good thing) to creep in and take the primary place.

In all this, though, the most important thing to remember is the glorious difference between the D.Phil. and the Christian life. Successful completion of the D.Phil. depends very significantly on one's own work. For the Christian, Jesus Christ has already done all the work.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."