“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
I used to claim that “change” was my middle name… especially after I’d moved classrooms four years in a row.
I sought change in my teaching assignments because the thrill of learning, growing, BECOMING a fuller version of myself, egged me onward.
But for some reason change felt more taxing the longer I taught. I even began to see change as downright scary after I transferred from middle to elementary school. Everything was new.
Can you relate?
My friend Sarah Miller who teaches in SW Washington and I recorded a conversation on this week’s podcast addressing the “crustiness” we sometimes battle as educators as the years roll on.
Sometimes the crust is a result of all the weariness we’ve carried connected to change that’s been completely out of our control.
But the good news is Jesus wants to meet us right there in the change… even if we feel a little crusty.
Sarah invites us to seek how we might put on heaven’s hopefilled lenses to see the way Jesus views our teaching assignments, and especially the kiddos that come to us with negative reputations.
They, too, need room to change. And change for them may feel impossible without your help.
Who might God be calling you to pray for on your class list this year who needs a second chance? How might you be an advocate, like Barnabas was for Paul in the bible, so they may be allowed space change?
Don’t discount the power you hold to call out the gold in the ones who come with the thick files. This might just be the year that you call out what God sees in them and EVERYTHING CHANGES.
Now those are the best kind of changes, right? I’d get up on a desk and cheer for that change, wouldn’t you?!