I started out as a 4th grade teacher, then 8th, then 7th, then 5th. I helped in 1st and eventually went into administration which led me to ECE, and then HS. I have been fortunate to see the growth of God’s young people at a lot of levels.
This is year 30 for me. Concordia Teachers College Class of 1980 – Go Bulldogs.
I am probably one of the few people in the room who actually spanked a student – and also may be one of the few in the room who was spanked as a student.
For some of you, I am still a pup and thank you!
For others, I am the old guy and to you I also say thank you.
And I have earned every one of these gray hairs
All along the way though God has been good!
Yesterday was a reflective day for me – The Who played at the Super Bowl
What was that about?
The Who – my college band
The band who held a concert at the Rose Bowl – Oct 29, 1982 – my second year of teaching – and I had to make a dentist appointment to attend it – sorry Mr. Grice (actually I did apologize years later).
I think about those early years – Teaching was fun – it was about my friends – it was about me - but I’m not sure it was about the kids as much as it needed to be
That started to change June 12, 1986 when my first child was born. But even then, it was more about my job, what I did, not about the gift I had been given to share Jesus.
Then I had an awakening – a significant change – where God affected me in such a tremendous way. He grabbed me and got my attention to be in His Word everyday.
Over the years, I have encouraged people over the years to be in The Word, and I have also said it will change your life.
But you know, I may not have been completely truthful. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a podcast on my morning walk. It was by a Baptist pastor from Minneapolis, MN, John Piper.
Pastor Piper said these words as he encouraged his congregation to read God’s Word in 2010.
I believe that relationship is built in His Word
Being in His Word though gives us no guarantees. As John Piper (Holding Fast the Word of Life in 2010, January 10, 2010) recently said…
But one thing I know: There is a spiritual diet without which no Christian can be strong and healthy and fruitful. And that is a diet of the word of God.
No Promises of Power
Hear me carefully. I am making no promises that reading or memorizing the Bible will automatically make your life strong and healthy and fruitful. The Pharisees read and memorized the Scriptures more than any of us ever will. And most them, Jesus said, were cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12).
I am not giving a guaranteed technique for power. The Spirit blows where and when he wills. I have known seasons of terrible barrenness in reading the Bible. Not in neglecting the Bible, but in reading the Bible. I am not God, and the Bible is not God. God is God. And we do well not to think we can manipulate him by handling his words like beads on a string or fingers on a ouija board.
So I am giving you no guaranteed regimen or device or scheme or trick for spiritual power and health and fruitfulness. Bible reading is not magic. Bible memory is not mind control or divination. I don’t know if your reading the Bible and meditating and memorizing will give you power and health and fruitfulness.
Don’t Starve the Grace
What I do know is: Without it you starve every grace that God means for you to thrive on (in) his world. There is a spiritual diet without which no Christian can be strong and healthy and fruitful. And that is a diet of the word of God.
Piper is right.
There are no guarantees when reading God’s Word. But it is His Word. And it was given to you and you and you and me.
We cannot be strong and healthy and fruitful without the Word of God.
And you and I get to take that Word and share it with young people everyday.
It is a responsibility we have and we need to show up everyday and be ready to do that.
I want you to feel that responsibility – I want you to bring it everyday.
What we get to do everyday is special.
Talk to people who work at your school who never had that opportunity before coming to your school. To be with a community of believers – to be able to share your faith openly – to know you affect the faith lives of young people – there is no greater calling.
It is not easy,
Especially at this time of the year.
Yet we have the power to be significant in the lives of others
That power is God’s Word.
Find time everyday to be in His Word.
No guarantees – but without it, as John Piper said, “without it, you starve every grace that God means for you to thrive on in His world.”
