GOD'S LOVE

By the time April arrives, many teachers feel like they are limping across the finish line. March in the classroom can feel a little like survival mode: lessons to finish, restless students, and the growing sense that summer is just around the corner. At my school we often call it “March Madness,” and we are not talking about basketball.

For whatever reason, March always seems to be INSANE. Maybe it’s the lead-up to Easter. Maybe it’s thinking about all the curriculum you still need to cover before the end of the year. Or maybe students can just smell summer coming, and the scent drives them wild. Whatever the reason, I usually enter April feeling like I’m limping across the finish line after fighting my way through March. Sometimes those exhausting seasons remind us just how much we need the hope Christ gives us.

This April I am reminded that we don’t have to have it all together. We don’t even need to act like it. We have a Savior who loves us as we are, who calls us close to Him when we are limping and struggling, who died for us not because we deserve it or can earn it, but because His love for us is so great. How sweet is it when He reminds us of His love?

I have a student this year who, instead of wanting to work quietly on an early finisher option, often snags a Bible off the shelf and heads toward me. Her goal: Scripture hunting. Her objective: finding a verse as quickly as possible. Her target: a very busy teacher trying to help half the class at once.

Now I wish I could say that the visage of patience, the attitude of a sage monk, or even a patient Sunday school teacher suddenly appears within me the moment a student willingly grabs a Bible off the shelf and heads toward me. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. In this instance I’m in survival mode, helping seemingly every other student in the class on six different tasks, all needing my immediate attention, including two dangerously wild scissor wielders.

So, when she approaches brandishing her Bible, I gird my loins and prepare for the never-ending, seemingly ceaseless onslaught of verse requests. Being the teacher that I am, I want to avoid verses about circumcision or other matters I would rather not have an unsolicited class conversation about, so I find myself referencing verses that I memorized as a kid. Now, not to brag, but a lot of them are still kicking around in the old noggin’. But sometimes it takes someone else to remind you of the true power held within the Word of God.

After about 7 verse requests ranging from classics (John 3:16) to more obscure, at least in the mind of a 4th grader, (Zechariah 4:6) I asked the student to find Romans 5:8.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

In the middle of the chaos of the classroom, the Word of God cut through everything. As she stared smiling up at me, proud that she found the verse so quickly and read it so confidently, I couldn’t help but smile back. That really is good news! I stopped what I was doing (ignoring raised hands and twirling scissors) and had the student read the first eleven verses out loud.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

(Romans 5:1-11)

I’ve read that verse many times before. I’ve taught it. I’ve memorized it. But hearing it out loud in the middle of a chaotic classroom, spoken by a fourth grader holding an open Bible, it stopped me in my tracks.

As I write this now, I know it was a holy moment. God chose to speak to me through His Word with the voice of a child, reminding me on a busy, imperfect, messy, overwhelming day that we don’t need to have it all together. Through His Word, the Holy Spirit continues to pour God’s promises into our hearts, reminding us again and again of the salvation Christ has won for us on the cross. God calls us to glory in our sufferings that produce perseverance, character, and hope. And this is a hope that does not put us to shame. That while we were powerless and sinful God showed us His love in the ultimate act of redemption, His death on the cross and joyful resurrection.

As we look toward the joy of Easter morning, let us remember that our hope does not come from having everything under control. Our hope comes from Christ, who loved us while we were still sinners and gave His life for us. Even in the chaos of busy classrooms, tired teachers, and messy days, God’s Word still speaks. It reminds us that we are justified by grace, reconciled to God, and filled with a hope that does not put us to shame.

And sometimes, God chooses to remind us of that truth through the joyful voice of a child holding an open Bible.

       Dylan Thompson, St. Paul’s, San Diego, CA