Teaching this year has shown me how much we do not deserve the God we have. While you know these things in bits and pieces - you think you really know it one day - then down the road you see it is so much deeper than you once thought.
I'm reading in Judges. I've been reading the Pentateuch for about an eternity now, and Judges is showing me parallels to my career life right now. I teach high school students. Not just any high school students - high school students with entitlement mentalities and whopping egos. I teach high school students who are beyond being above correction. In the midst of the demi-gods we teachers come and go. Our school has been in the news for major fights over five times. I've been called the B-word multiple times, been told to F-off, been shoved, been told, "I don't have to take this" (while I was also thinking it). I've spent whole class periods attempting to get the attention of each student at the same time for only 30 seconds.
And here I am, reading Judges. I've talked to my kids, tried to get through to them, knowing that my Jeremiah moments will probably fall on deaf ears. I see Israel in them. As a teacher, I want them to hear and do before the face they consequences of an ungracious and unforgiving world. I want them to heed wisdom. I sound really great, don't I?
Frustration and straight up rage are my neighbors. Never have I been so negative - never have I been so out of my mind angry, upset, anxious and frustrated. Never have I simply put on full display the depth of my depravity. I need a Savior. I count myself elect - I know Jesus has ransomed me, continues to. But this has been hard and frustrating. I find myself confessing nothing short of hatred often.
The struggles through this past year have shown me how deeply I do not understand the patience and mercy of God. As I complain and weep to the Lord, as I air out my frustrations and hurt, I'm reminded of the accused and silent Jesus who stood before full-on liars and did not force His cause nor exalt Himself. I'm nowhere near that. I'm not even blameless and I'm at my wits end.
It truly is a wonder that we have not been cast into the pit of hell. I look at some Christians who don't like that kind of talk - the talk that tells us that we are horrifically depraved sinners in the face of a God who has given us chance after chance after chance. Until they have seen the unashamed depraved and how they don't even WANT a rescue, how they refuse help, how they continually brag about their folly, and then how they treat others who would welcome them with open arms would they see their own reaction to it and conclude that ALL of us, each and every one of us needs a Savior to pull us out of the pool of sin that we are drowning in. And if you don't think you are drowning, you are not in a place where you can be honest with yourself. I wasn't. I grew up churched, grew up knowing Jesus, grew up loving Him, grew up espousing neat and trite "you should" statements, and understood very little about what my reaction to situations would say about me if I was in the worst of the worst conditions. I'm not even out of the country in some place with no clean water and I'm already crying foul (and crying a whole lot just in general).
We need Jesus so badly. With desperation we need to seek Him daily that His mercy would fall on our children - many of whom have no fathers, overworked, angry mothers sadly removed from the reality of their children's depravity, and grandparents who wonder what exactly went wrong. We need Jesus to show us patience with people whom refuse our love and help, patience and grace with those who mock our efforts, and wisdom on how to move forward. We are coming to the end of an age and time will run out for everyone at some point. The harvest is ready. The workers are few.
