Happy
New Year! I pray that you had a blessed holiday and a restful break. Depending upon your instructional calendar, you
may be either returning to work getting in those final skills before the end
of the semester, preparing for a new crop of students, welcoming in the kids
who moved over the holidays, or just getting your students ready for the last
half of the school year. Some folks go back to school saying, “Let's get ‘er done!” or “When will this be over?”.
I
want to talk to those of you who really didn’t want to go back to work. Not
because you would rather stay home with your cute cuddly young’uns or still
have housework that lost out to your Netflix binge, but because you really don’t like
the atmosphere in which you work; the overwhelming student behaviors, redundant
paperwork, unsupportive parents and maybe even unfriendly coworkers. Been there, done that, so I know how you
feel. I also know a solution that I tried once.
Last
week I wrote a blog about revival
that spoke a little about this solution. But let me tell you a story first.
A
long time ago, there was a man by the name of Gideon.
If you look in the bible in the book of Judges chapters 6-8, you can read about
the full life of our story’s hero. Now, this Gideon had been living the last
seven years of his life being oppressed. His work was constantly disrupted and
destroyed no matter what he or anyone else around him did. No matter how hard he and his people tried,
they couldn’t do their jobs because of the destructive, overwhelming force of
the Amalekites and other countries around them.
Seven years! Seven years of feeling like, “Why even bother? They’re just going to tear it up anyway!” Seven years of struggling to live and support
your family only with little to no evidence of your hard work!
So,
we find Gideon in verse eleven of chapter six in the book of Judges hiding, all
alone in a winepress threshing wheat. It had gotten to the point
that he couldn’t even do his job the way it was meant to be done! Although he
received a visitation by God (whom he doesn’t recognize as such) with the world’s
best pep talk ever (which he doesn’t believe) Gideon is reluctant to take on the mantle of leadership that he is being presented with. God has selected him to free his people from their oppression. Gideon does everything from questioning God’s
faithfulness
to His chosen people, listing his reason for being unqualified for the task, to
asking for proof (several times) that God will do as He promised.
I
want you to realize that the Amalekites weren’t just some pestering group of
people that got on Israel’s nerves. They totally outnumbered the Children of Israel. Then to make matter worse, the Amalekites joined
forces with the Midianite people and more people of the East so much so that
their total numbers were beyond recording and only listed as “numerous as locusts
with their camels as the sand by the seashore in multitude”.
Gideon
armed only with the assurance that God was with him, gathered a force of over
thirty-two thousand fighting men. However, God
told him to send twenty-two thousand home! Then, to make matters worse, God ordered Gideon to send all but three hundred back home.
Why?
Israel’s successful outcome of this uneven battle would never be attributed to their own methods and strength, but by God’s and God’s alone.
If you continue reading Judges chapter seven, you’ll see that before Gideon and his
men had the opportunity to employ their own strength, God’s strength and methods were already at work in these three ways:
-specific instructions with confirmation (Judges 7:9-11)
-sound Judges 7: 16-18
-light
Judges 7: 19-21
With
just trumpets and clay jars holding lit torches, Gideon and his army of three
hundred like-minded men watched as God fought their battle for them.
The
impossible became possible because one person answered the call, gathered
others, listened for God’s voice and followed the instructions to sound the
trumpet and shine the light.
So,
do you really work in an environment that’s never going to change? Will the teaching profession just continually
get worse? In all honesty, the outlook doesn’t look very
promising for some who are in those challenging and struggling school systems. But is it something that one just has to
accept, deal with or get out of?
There
is a solution and yes I’m going to say “prayer”.
Don’t
look at me with that tone of voice! Yes, I heard your question, “Well if it
worked so well for you, why do you have all those blogs about wanting to quit
and being frustrated?”
Remember in the case of Gideon, there
was a lot involved with winning that war; belief, obedience, repentance, unity, and perseverance. If you keep reading
the rest of Gideon’s story, you’ll see that he and his small army still had to pursue their enemy even past the point of exhaustion and were denied assistance
from those who could’ve helped.
I did not pursue
to enemy past the point of exhaustion. I was once a
I was once a
part of a gathered group of teachers who purposed the enemy together in fervent
prayer for our school, our system, our students, and our own families and our
prayers were answered. But the fervor died down when the smoke cleared and
some folks moved away. I was content with focusing on battles in my own
classroom because it was out of my comfort zone to actively look for fellow
soldiers in my school to join me in fighting the war.
While
I am currently not assigned to any school, I still see the need for revival. I am no longer on the front lines, but I still
hear the cannons in the distance and smell the smoke on my daughters in high
school and my husband who is both a teacher and coach. It is while gazing at my own battle scars
that I urge you to rethink the enormity of the issues you are facing as an
educator and the power you have to make a difference.
Meditate
on the story of Gideon and know you are not in a hopeless situation. Remember God’s method involved these three
things:
-specific instructions with confirmation
Listen to what God is saying to
you and obey
-sound
Speak up and out for Him
-light
Be the light so that others can
see Jesus with 20/20 vision
The
Lord is with you and you are loved,
Toni
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