It’s no great secret. Ask any teacher what their least favorite time of the week is, and they’ll most likely reply “Sunday Evening.” It’s the day before the start of a new week and a repeat of writing more lesson plans, grading more papers, observations, testing, and, heaven-forbid, another fire drill. And for many teachers, those will be the easiest things they deal with in the classroom.
But, it’s also in the hum-drum of the every day, the snail’s pace of progress that makes a teacher question the difference he or she is actually making. I questioned it of myself this past week. This morning, I found myself talking to a friend who was doubting the same.
I think it was no coincidence, then, that one of our scripture readings during the church service included Mark 4:26-27.
And [Jesus] said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.
So it may be that the daily scatterings of knowledge, patience, discipline, and love in the classroom will sprout and grow, whether the teacher sees or knows how. It could be that the late nights and early rising will later be blessed with a harvest that the teacher cannot judge now.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
Teaching isn’t the only profession that is tiring, but it is tiring. Teaching is not the only profession that requires self-giving and denial, but it does require those. Teaching is not the only profession that is time-consuming, but that it most certainly is. The bright hope for tomorrow, even as I may be laboring late tonight and then again early tomorrow, is that my scattering of the seed, seeking to do kingdom work in the place God has given, will produce a harvest, even if I know not how it takes root and grows.
Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
thoughts and songs 