As a wise man once said, "Don't use a quote to introduce a parapgraph; it's so cliche." Even with that being the case, I hope that you will permit me to use a long quote here at the beginning of this blog post. This is the best way of describing my first month teaching at Restoration that I can think of, and it comes from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." Lewis writes:
“We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected: I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”-C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity
If you were to ask me what I've learned my first month of teaching, I would say this: I have a lot of rats in my cellar.
Just so we're all speaking the same language, let me set out the particulars of my job: I teach 8th-11th grade at Restoration Academy, and the school, which has 290 k-12 students, is located in Fairfield, Alabama. I teach "The character of God" to the 8th grade, "OT Survey" to the 9th grade, "NT Survey" to the 10th grade, and "Biblical Ethics" to the 11th grade. Restoration is a Christian school, but I mean that in the sense that all of the faculty are Christians, and we are trying to reach our students with the Gospel-the vast majority of whom are NOT Christians (thought they would profess that they are.). I am one of two Bible teachers, and the other, Sam Cargo, teaches 7th and 12th grades as well as overseeing the spiritual development of the entire school and of the the faculty.
I want to send all of you faithful prayer warriors a monthly snapshot of what's happening Restoration, but I don't want this to be a kind of day by day log of the previous month. That would be tiresome to write and worse to read. I would be happy to give you that if you wanted it (individually haha), but for the sake of brevity (ha!), I'm going to just keep this to more of my impressions rather than my daily activities. This month: rats.
They tell you when they hear that you've accepted a teaching position that "It's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done." 4 weeks into my teaching career I can say that "they" are absolutely correct, but in my case the difficulty has come from within rather than without. I have not found the act of teaching too be difficult, though I will admit that I am more tired than I have ever been before. I have not found the act of preparing lessons to be where the difficulty lies; that has actually been great fun thus far. Even classroom management itself, my greatest area of concern going into the year, has not been as hard as I feared it would be. (Hear me well: all of these areas, and countless more, are only doable thanks to continuous prayer, so please continue to lift me up in these ways.) No, what has made this "the hardest thing I have ever done" so far is that my heart, the heart that is supposed to be teaching these kids, is full of rats, and our Father has started the process of showing them to me.
When a kid sleeps in class, am I angry because he is hurting himself or because he is ignoring ME? When a kid rolls his eyes at me, am I upset because he is breaking God's laws or because he is disrespecting ME? Am I driven to weeping over the darkness that these kids find themselves in or frustration because they don't get my cool lessons? Am I driven to my knees over the hardness of their hearts or do I just send them to the office for someone else to deal with? Am I willing to take the time to discipline with love and the Gospel, or do I just punish them and move on? Friends, I confess to you that far too often it is the latter. As our principal told us, aren't we so grateful that our heavenly Father doesn't discipline us the way we discipline others? He never gives up on us or gets tired of how many times he has to explain something to us. I am learning so much about myself in this job, and the news is both worse than I expected and better than I hoped. I am in desperate need of the gospel on a day to day, class to class, moment to moment basis. Without Christ, I am as prone to wander as any of these kids, and I am not the patient, loving person I imagined myself to be. That's the bad news. The good news? As I have preached grace to these kids, I have heard the Father say to me: "There's plenty of grace for teachers at my cross as well."
Pray for: discipline. Pray that I would learn to discipline in love; pray that I would have discipline in my own life with time, preparation, and my diet and exercise. I need to be at my best physically as well as spiritually in this job. Pray that I would not just see these "rats" in my life, but that the Lord would move me to exterminate them.
Praise: Praise the Lord for moments of clarity with students as I have explained a gospel concept, and they have understood it. Praise the Lord for incredible co-workers to labor alongside.
Students: Pray for KD, Gerald, and Tim. The Lord is working in all 3 of their hearts; pray that salvation would come to them soon.
Grateful for you all!
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