In the Way

I read James 1-5

"Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life" (James 3:1-2).

I actually have those words on a 3x5 card on my wall behind my monitor here in my office. It's an ego check, one that I need more frequently than I would like to admit. Any lesson that goes well, any activity that is pulled off right and suddenly you'll find me thinking that I have it made. And then on Monday I find myself very frustrated by the slightest thing going wrong. Why? Because I forget that I'm not perfect and thus that my work will never be perfect.

I believe that God has set me to be a teacher of fellow Christians. What he teaches is perfect, what he sets before us is perfect. Channeled through me it's going to get mixed up and dirtied. My work then as a teacher should be to interfere as little as possible with God's words, make my goal to be unseen, visible as an impediement to what God is saying and acting to those being taught. We're doing our job as teachers when those we teach don't need us anymore.