A Beacon

 

Love the Lord with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind and all of your strength, and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

I have spent the last few years in the spiritual wilderness for some reason or other. I thought I was just weak and that there was no real reason for the malady that seemed to be holding me back from others. I think though that God always has a purpose for the trials that befall us and more often than not it has to do with brokenness and the need for that in following God’s will.

If you look at the aspirations of our hearts in terms of what we desire and impacts that they have on where we see our future. You see that what God brings on us usually involves a conflict between our aspirations and His aspirations for our future. We get despondent and depressed because we feel we are not achieving on the world stage, but in reality God is shaping us through events that we do not desire and outcomes that we do not see the value in and we are travelling in what we perceive as being the wrong direction.

Businesses do not thrive, work places do not blossom with opportunities that we would see as being advantageous. We end up being servants and not rulers. We become discontented with being stuck in what we see as the wrong places and those around us do not behave in ways that we would see as being desirable in time frames we would see as advantageous.

Further, those we would want to be in the hand of Jesus do not seem to be any closer to getting on to their knees and confessing their sins to their creator or changing into biddable Christian people who could do what we would like them too? We ask Lord “What are you thinking, surely these lost individuals would be better if they were saved and the Holy Spirit was working in their hearts.” However, we do not listen for an answer because we know it would involve waiting on God and His perfect timing.

Lately and personally, I have returned to working as a reliever at a local high school. I had thought that particular part of my life to be closed and that I was in semi retirement and caring for my family. So, here I am back working five days a week with difficult youngsters who although they are talented have often have little or no inclination to learn even if their futures might depend on it.

For a long time in education, the thinking was that fostering self esteem and creating a well rounded individual was more important than discipline and learning. The result was petulant youths with no respect for those older than they are or authority in general. Now, we have created those holistically well rounded graduates we sought, but unfortunately they have achieved less and less academically until now some are not suitable for integration into the work force and many of them lack the means for a successful career.

The cycle is coming full circle and although we don’t use corporal punishment we are tending to act more sternly toward the students. Factor in devices, and we still have a problem because the students are not only petulant they fail to see the benefit in the education they are receiving because they cannot see the relevance of it to their lives. We are trying to control device access but the horse appears to have bolted and it is too late to regain control of the narrative.

What it comes down to is that those in control have dumbed the education system down and have given the younger generation the devices with the intention of making them more prone to suggestion, educating them in war and with less academic achievement they are making them more controllable.

We are arriving at the destination that the enemy has planned for our once Christian country and now we desperately need to have God bring repentance and revival to our foundering land before we reap the consequences of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

What it comes down to is that we are now in a situation where the only way to restore the past is to preach the gospel to lost generations and pray for them. Only in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ can they be led to the lives which value those around them and to acquire wisdom that will restore them into communion with God and to find the future God has planned for them. 

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope." 

So of myself and coming out of the desert. I find myself focusing on what it is God wants me to do now He has me back education. One of the things that he led me too is the way I work with the groups of students in the classroom. Years ago when I was training my lecturer noticed that I am very calm and the students tap into that calmness. I didn’t really understand the comment at the time.

A friend of mine always comments on the calmness I bring to their department and how the students really benefit from that. Again, I didn’t really understand. I have always used a collaborative approach with the learners and a non confrontational style. Recently, I have been working with colleagues who use a much more assertive style of classroom management than I do and it caused me to reassess my own approach. Should I change to a more authoritarian model?

The question is really could I change my way of managing the classroom. I mean, I am who I am or I am who God has made me. This became a real challenge for a while as I grappled with how I might become more assertive and clamp down on the students. In the end I decided that I don’t want to spend my time jousting with the children and decided that I’ll just continue as teaching in the same style that I have. I am calm because I need peace in relating to those around me. It is a prerequisite for me in life.

Philippians 4: 4-7 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” BSB

The peace that I bring to the classroom is not my own, No, if you read the passage above you will see that it comes from Christ Jesus. It starts with His gentleness revealed in my heart by the Holy Spirit. I try not to be anxious but that can be a hard ask with a group of agitated young people. I certainly pray and seek God for them while I’m with them but that calm that folks notice? Well, that comes from the peace of God which surpasses all understanding and God guards my heart that is for sure.

In the secular arena Christians are not able to preach the gospel in our schools so to reach people you have to model being a Christian to them. The calm that I radiate comes not from my inner peace but from the presence of the Holy Spirit within me. God has changed me into a beacon, and he reaches out to those around me through His peace and calm in me. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not boasting of being perfect rather I am just a humble servant of the Living God, Yahweh Elohim. Someone that loves Him and that it pleases Him to use.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”