Impact Unknown

So there's an article in the Huff Post circulating about this student note: 

I would venture to say this is the kind of note that is every teacher's dream gift and motivation, and I've been so blessed to have received similar notes and messages through the years.  I always treasure them.

This has been an especially difficult semester, but God knew just how to strengthen and encourage me here at the semester's end.  And it's made me realize more than ever that it doesn't matter how short a season you interact with a person - you can have great influence in his or her life.

Can I be really honest?  My passion is music.  Stick with me.  What I mean is my passion is music and teaching music is a natural extension of that desire to enable others to experience the same emotions, perhaps transcendence even, that music stirs within me.  Because of that, I'm absolutely thrilled when those student notes express things like, "I could never hit that high A before you!!"  I love that.  But what I think is easy to overlook is the fact that, as a teacher, I have the capacity to impact students in ways other than musically.

Just this semester, there's the note from a former student thanking me for building his confidence and helping pull him out of a dark depression.  There's the note in which a student thanked me for being an inspiration and for holding such high expectations that my classes helped draw him off a path of self-destruction and drug abuse.  There's the note in which a student credits me for helping encourage and push her to keep working hard and become a successful student in all her classes.  There's the anonymous note that thanked me for always being a wonderful example of Christ's love.

Whether posted on social media for all to see, sent in a private email, or handwritten on a card, these notes mean so very much to me.  Trust me:  It's all too easy to focus on those students who fail.  These are the ones I cannot help because they refuse to meet me halfway.  It's the most discouraging facet of teaching - students who don't succeed!  It saddens me that these students haven't been academically motivated before they get to college and don't seem to connect their own discipline with a better life in the future.

As a teacher, that's what I want most of all - to give students a reason to want to succeed.  To help them find value in being excellent in whatever they put their hand or mind to, in doing their very best.  Not because they think I deserve their best, but because THEY deserve to know the fruits of their own best labor.

So here is my thank you to my students, past, present, and future, who decide to do their best.  You are the reason I keep teaching.  You are MY inspiration.  Now...let me share some music with you.

Jesus Just Wants You to Be...Happy?

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!   

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!

 If you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it. 

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!  (Clap, Clap)

Where did you learn this little ditty?  Pre-School?  Scouts?  Barney?   I’m not sure where I first learned it, but I’m pretty sure we sang it in church.  Right alongside “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart!  Where?!  Down in my heart to stay!” 

But more and more on social media, I see posts like this:

 "Jesus wants everyone to be happy.  This picture makes me feel good.  I think Jesus was one of the happiest people on earth.  He proved this by dying for us and that He loves you and me.  What more could you ask of our Lord.  He asks very little from each of us.  May Jesus bring you a blessing today!"

And this:

"You might be a hypocrite if...you turn Jesus' message of faith and love 

into one of fear and hate."

Aaaaand these:

"The best cure for CHRISTIANITY is reading the Bible."  -Mark Twain 

 "GOD HATES BIBLE THUMPERS."

 

 And many other similar posts calling out the so-called “hypocrites” of Christianity in the name of “God is Love.”  And I’ve got to admit, it rubs me the wrong way.  

• Do I believe God is love?  Yes.  Whole-heartedly. 

• Do I believe we should sit in judgment over people and eagerly point out their sin?  That would be a  no. Got my own sin to worry about.

• Do I believe we should never talk about sin or Hell because it may turn people away from God’s message of love?  Sigh. 

I think this is where things have gone awry.  And I’m guilty of it, too.  But friends, the “good news” of the gospel is this:  “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 

Yes, it’s about love.  But it’s also about our desperate and utter NEED for Him.  While we were yet SINNERS. 

So when I hear friends assert that Christians need to read the Bible because they obviously don’t get it- that Jesus is all about love and acceptance since He ate with prostitutes and tax collectors- I feel such a pang of unease.  Not because I feel guilty that I am “one of those hypocrites” who stresses fear, but because I feel guilty that I’ve perhaps contributed to this misnomer that God is ONLY about love.  That I’ve misled souls into trusting that because God is good and God is love and God is merciful, that He is not also a God of righteous judgment and a God of wrath and a God of justice. 

So, yes!  Let’s read the Bible.  Let’s see what the scriptures say.  Let’s not act like we already know what it says. Because I don't think you can read the New Testament and still believe that all Jesus asks of you is to be happy and spread love.  There's so much more--let's not simplify the Bible.

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,

and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,

and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  Hebrews 4:12