HOMESCHOOLED
In the Classroom with God
July 26th, 2023
See, I’ve been in the classroom lately. With God. And while the lessons have been extremely difficult, excruciatingly painful, exhaustingly real, they also are the purpose of a patient Teacher’s Lesson Plan—extravagantly designed for my good and ultimately His use. And He is (home)schooling me so I may know that He has my best interests strategically in sync with the beat of His heart.
TODAY’S LESSON: Growing Pains
Sometimes the phone rings, or dings from a message downloading and arriving in the Inbox, and in the breath of a second, everything can change. Maybe it’s a diagnosis from a test your doctor recently ordered or the crash of something sturdy you believed in or a call you weren’t prepared to receive or simply being somewhere at the wrong time and place. Whatever the happening might be, you can find yourself flat on a floor of defeat, covered in surprise, treading through anguish and disbelief. If you are honest, you may admit it feels somewhat like being threshed, separated, torn apart. In those moments, it’s important to remember it’s possible good can come from this place of sadness and collapse.
When the call came the other morning, it was the last thing we had time for in our day. Emergencies often aren’t convenient. Nor timely. Seldom are we prepared to answer a cry for help. We can always want for the best, prepare for the worst, and still, bewilderment will accompany most outcomes. We tracked him all over the city. When you care about someone, it’s what you do; you hunt them down, and before you strangle them, your heart pours from your lips, your hopes leak from your eyes. He was coming down, and angry like a hornet, especially when he ran out of gas and we took his keys. The consequences to his actions would soon be far greater than an empty gas tank. Looking in a mirror is far more difficult when you do it alone because your family has walked away; when your daughter—the one you were supposed to be helping instead—no longer wants anything to do with you.
Busted trust is futile to mend, it seems. There are so many stages to that grief, but you must remember, the relationship broke because of your actions. Not mine. Picture the cord of friendship. It has many strands binding it together, all woven and wound symmetrically. Some of the most powerful threads in a relationship are made of trust. They are nearly impossible to break, but once broken, they are even more impossible to repair. In fact, no matter how you re-tie the broken strands, there is still a tear, a blemish, a blunder, the place where it was damaged, torn. When trust is tainted, the distaste which lingers is hard to disguise and often unforgettable.
So, we remain fragile. He is working hard to repair the trust, to mend what has been broken. He is gaining millimeters with his family, reckoning his own struggles alongside those of his grown children who his choices affect. We talked about it today. Victories are battles that are hard fought. No one should have to beg for forgiveness. Jesus doesn’t require that of me no matter how many times I have failed. He doesn’t make me plead, but He does ask of me to surrender, submit my weaknesses to His powerful faithfulness, yield my stubbornness to do it myself to Him because He can, and I can’t. Our friend shouldn’t grovel for this friendship and our help, but perhaps he must admit he can’t journey alone. There is strength in numbers. Just like a strand of three cords is harder to break, like trust tried and true and tested.
His eyes filled with tears as he confessed, he no longer wanted to be this person, locked in this self-made prison of loathing and dependency. I believe him. I remember how that felt. I recall what it felt like to not be able to recognize that girl in the mirror. How I would think back on the memories of myself, the addict; how I couldn’t distinguish she was me; how there was no way to identify with who I had become. How I would think of ‘that girl’ as someone who so desperately needed help. How deliberately I yearned to go in to rescue the girl all twisted up with the drugs. How badly I wanted to go save her, help her. Quietly, I told him what worked most for me.
The light dawned for our friend. Slowly, he began to nod his head, recollecting. I charged him. ‘Look on yourself,’ I whispered. ‘You’ll see yourself as someone who you can’t fathom is you. Feel for him. Hover over him; hurt for him, long for his sobriety for him, then rush in and rescue him. You’ll save him. And yourself. A two-fer,’ I said. He giggled, but slowly nodded. Then, he smiled and said, ‘A two-fer. I like that.’
There is a sifting on the threshing floor, a refining in the cauldron of life. In the life of a believer, all that is deemed worthless is to be separated from that which has purpose and value. It is a painful process, the grinding of the grain head, where the seed hides, to separate it from the straw. What is of no value is blown away, carried on the wind and lost. What has great value falls into the dirt, to a dark and musty place where it inhabits the ground until growth occurs. Growing is arduous also. There is nothing about being sifted that is not harrowing and difficult; nothing about refinement that isn’t tedious and often agonizing. Surrender is excruciating. But what can come out of the dirt is beautiful and useful and vast. If we trust Him with the process, He can make the time on the threshing floor of such great worth and progress. Always remember, there is promise in pain, hope in humility, a token in torment.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:
What are you facing that God is waiting for you to bring to the threshing floor? _______________
____________________________________________________________________________________________ .
What are you holding onto that you need to surrender? _______________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________ .
‘I hear the Lord saying, “I will stay close to you, instructing you and guiding you along the pathway for your life. I will advise you along the way and lead you forth with My eyes as your guide. So, don’t make it difficult; don’t be stubborn when I take you where you’ve not been before. Don’t make Me tug you and pull you along. Just come with Me!”’ (Psalm 32:8-9, TPT)
