Psalm 67

Just a very quick thought today from Psalm 67. David tells the reader in this chapter that God judges righteously and that God blesses those that follow Him. We can have confidence that God is a God of love and that he does not take our praise or require our praise, but rather he shows us love and we love Him in return. It’s a very strange thing to think that God does not instill fear in our hearts about Him and does not punish us so that we always do the right thing, but He lets us grow and shows us His goodness. The God of the universe, the one that created us works in just this way.

Here is the valuable lesson for those of us who are educators. When we see a student perform poorly do we simply and sternly tell them that they are just not trying, that they are smarter than that, that if they really wanted to they could do the work if they weren’t just so lazy? That is not how God has changed us. We love Him because he first loved us. God is longsuffering toward us. And, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We should continue to work with that child until he is no longer under our care or he succeeds. We are the teachers, if they already knew everything we wouldn’t be needed.

And maybe consider this: if you have a room full of bad eggs, maybe they learned it from you. Although parents are the most influential part of a student’s life, they spend more time with you in the classroom than they will each day with their parents. Perhaps, if we truly believed that a class is a reflection of the teacher, we would take more seriously the task before us. God certainly did.