Daniel Dicken

As I continue processing the news from Asbury and what comes next, I can’t help but look back at how I got here. I’ve been hit-or-miss with journaling, but thankfully, I came across something I wrote only three months before I moved on campus and started at HBU.

I want to share a part of that journal entry here as a reminder to myself and others about how trustworthy our God is.

At the end of August 2019, during the first week of the Fall semester at Lone Star College, I dropped all of my classes because something didn’t feel right: school, home, future, everything.

After I dropped those classes, I had immediate peace and felt like I was coming back to where I was supposed to be. I knew that I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, but carefully listen to and trust what God was telling me.

I had a conversation that night with my Dad that I was using the next few months to wait and see where God wanted me.

Earlier that week, I finished “The Reason for God” by Timothy Keller, and it got me thinking, specifically about how he explained and tied the OT and NT together. Those pages planted the seed, or made me aware, that [majoring in] Philosophy wasn’t right for me, and that I had always wanted to study the Bible, along with Greek and Hebrew.

Within the next day or two, I felt strongly that Houston Baptist University was where I needed to go and to not wait until Fall 2020 but start in the Spring. It ran counter to what I thought I wanted, so I kept praying, but felt confirmation that God was wasking me to trust and watch him do it. Again.

So I decided to do something about it, trusting that God would have to make it happen. I sent an application to HBU on Tuesday (September 3), which also required my transcript from LSC.

Since I dropped 3 classes already in session, I still had an outstanding balance due. With money due, the policy is that LSC would not send any transcripts until it was paid in full and the hold was removed. A couple of days later, I started to worry about not getting an answer until October when I could pay the balance, but I kept getting reminded that God said he would take care of it and to trust him.

So I went to my room early and did a quick HBU virtual tour. I finished around 9:30pm and saw an email come in from LSC notifying me that they sent my transcript to HBU. At 9:30pm…with an outstanding balance…

There is no way that I could do this on my own. The whole thing doesn’t add up and it has so many question marks.

My heart has felt better the last few weeks than it has in years, even in the middle of everything else going on.

Finally, on September 9th, I got an email saying I was accepted to HBU and will receive my official packet after October 1st.

It’s going, it’s scary, but man is it good!