The Teacher

I was thinking the other day about my short-lived teaching career. This was the most frustrating thing about teaching for me: the kids I could help the most were always the one who wouldn't trust me enough to let me do it. Over and over again I tried to make them see that I could do anything I wanted in the classroom, and that all I wanted to do was to help them learn. If they failed over and over and over again, but kept trying, kept working, kept giving their best effort, none of the failures would matter. As long as they tried and worked and trusted me, I had the power to let them retake tests, improve projects, change grades. I wasn't willing to lie for them, to tell them and everyone else that they had mastered something they weren't really getting yet, but I was willing to hang in there with them until they got it. I was willing to figure out new assignments, new approaches to the task at hand. I was willing to give them more time, more instruction, more opportunities to get it right. I stayed awake at night trying to figure out how to help them because I wanted so badly for them to succeed. Some of them just didn't care, some were convinced they'd never get it. They didn't want to learn, they didn't want to try. And they felt terrible about themselves when they fell short.

I think I'm like my students on a grander scale, and Christ is like the teacher. All he wants is for us to learn, to hang in there with him, giving our best effort, trying everything he asks us to try. I've failed; in fact, I fail quite often, sometimes repeatedly at the same task (i.e. trying to be genuinely kind when I'd rather be left alone, not crumbling into a blubbering, tearful mess every time life doesn't go just as I'd like it to, facing whatever scares me this week, taking care of my body, staying focused in my study of the gospel...the list could go on forever). Every time I repent, there's a part of me that fears that this will be the last straw with Him. That this time, when I get on my knees and ask him to let me try again, it won't work. That He'll reject me. But He never does. Every single time, without exception, the answer I get is "try again. I still love you. I'm with you. Try again."

He paid the price for us to learn. He qualified himself to be our teacher, which means his power is infinite and eternal. He can arrange for makeup tests, for do-overs, for extensions on the due date. He just wants us to trust him enough to try. If we will do that, if we will work, give our best effort while we are here in his "class," he can teach us to be like him. That's what I want.