All About Being a Teacher....

So here is what teaching can teach you about God....

Teaching is funny. It’s just a little bit less glamorous that the movies make you think. It’s a come-home-with-you, all-consuming, heart breaking & heart growing kind of job. Sometimes it feels like the most important thing in the world, and you are looking into the eyes of our world’s future leaders, and sometimes you’re trying to figure out how one of your students is soaked, head-to-toe, when he comes back from the bathroom. But the most true thing about this job is that it teaches you how much you pale in comparison to Jesus. SERIOUSLY. Teaching has made me love God so much more, simply because I am so unlike Him. (Even though I am an ENFJ, and there are rumors that he was also an ENFJ.)

Anyway, here are 5 things that I adore about God that I did not adore nearly as much before.

1. God wants us to come home even when we are dirty.

I teach middle school in an old portable. My room smells like spilled soda, body odor, mildew, and wet children all day long. Today, I watched a boy open a bag of takis, and start eating them. He dropped the bag on the floor, stepped on it, picked up a pencil on the floor, ate more takis, licked his hand (not fingers, his entire hand), shook hands with someone, rubbed his hand on every desk, ate more takis, ate some takis off the ground, licked his hand, touched all the walls, tied his shoes, played on his phone, stuck his hand in the taki bag, licked his taki covered hand, and then he tried to give me a high five. I legitimately gagged and thought to myself: I have never met a grosser creature. And this happens every day! I’m not even that much of a germ freak, but I was afraid of vomiting in the classroom. Weirdly, this reminded me of God. I realized how appalling it is that God loves us as we are. Even when we are grosser than my sweet student, covered in sin and dirt and shame, God loves us so much. I refused to give my student a high five before he washed his hands, and even then I was reluctant, but God isn’t like that. He doesn’t want us to come to him after any feeble attempts at cleaning ourselves up. He wants to embrace us right now. That’s incredible.

2. God is willing to tell us what we need to know again and again and again.

Every day, I tell my kids to put their phones up. E v e r y. D a y. Every single day, they forget that they are not allowed to have their phones out. Every day, they ignore the rule that has been in place all year. I get so frustrated, but then I am reminded of the basic truth that I forget even more often than they do, but God keeps on graciously reminding me of what is true. He reminds me of his word, time and time again. No matter how many times I forget or blatantly disobey, He is not impatient with us, but lovingly merciful.

3. We hate discipline, but it is so good for us.

After I ask the kids to put their phones away and they don’t, there has to be a consequence. This is what’s best for them. As a teacher, it is so easy to see that discipline comes out of love and it is a good thing. However, as a child of God, I am the first one to hate discipline. I hate difficult seasons, and I hate having to go through trials. But if I am a veryveryveryvery imperfect teacher who disciplines with benevolent intentions, how much more benevolent is our God? A perfect Father’s discipline is always good, all the time, no matter how annoying or inconvenient it is at the time.

4. No one weeps for us like God can.

The other day, one of my students found me in the hallway and she was sobbing. When I could finally get her to settle down enough to talk, she told me that she saw videos of what was happening in Venezuela, her home country, and she was devastated. She was scared for her family, sad for her home, and confused about the evil in this world. My heart shattered. How do I comfort her? How can I possibly make things better? In those moments, I realize just how little I know and just how big God is. War, heartbreak, destruction, death- those things are far beyond my control. It wasn’t until this year that I realized that I’m not capable of feeling heartbreak to the extent that I should. I wish that my heart could break like my student’s, but even as I watched the videos of the chaos in Venezuela, my human heart is limited in its capacity to feel pain for other people. I wish I could know exactly how she was feeling and sit alongside her and weep, but I cannot. God, however, CAN. He’s not only capable of understanding out pain, but he weeps with us. His heartbreak is even bigger than ours. When you are hurting, God is hurting more. He wants to take our pain, and the proof of this is found at Calvary. Instead of allowing us to suffer because of the sin we chose to enter into, Jesus became sin and conquered death so that instead of eternal suffering, we may enter into His perfect and beautiful Kingdom.

5. God gives new mercies every day.

The craziest Truth in the world has to be the fact that there are new mercies every day. This has gotten especially hard for me to understand as a teacher because I have a hard time welcoming in a new class after a unusually difficult one. There are times when I am close to tears because of a class’ behavior, but I am expected to start anew as the next group of students walk in. My job is to smile at these students who are about to disobey, wreck havoc, scoot their chairs across the floor, flip water bottles, and ask me for pencil after pencil. I should deal with behavior problems gracefully, no matter what. I am supposed to redirect them and try again. In order to love these kids like Jesus, I should joyfully give grace. Shockingly, I fail miserably, all the time. My patience runs out and I have to take a deep breath. Sometimes I go behind my desk and wipe tears away. Sometimes I daydream about a luxurious vacation I could take. But, God doesn’t. He doesn’t think about how he can get out of our mess, but he dreams about ways He can get in it. He does the craziest stuff just to win us over. He greets us every morning with shiny new mercies, and he’ll do that until Kingdom comes. He gives grace before we even know we need it, and this process brings him joy. He loves to forgive and loves it when we run home, even if we’ve broken his fancy new pencil sharpener and spills his coffee. This guy- this God- He is unlike any other.