GENTLE AS A DOVE
August 21, 2020
Prayer: Lord, thank You for this wonderful day and this job where You have decided I can be a light for You. I trust You to show me when to speak and when to wait. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
Scripture: But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Matt 13:23 NKJV
When is it time to put differences aside for the sake of unity versus standing up for the unpopular? This week, in the teacher’s lounge I was outnumbered: me, and them. I gave my views. It is not a matter of caring whether or not people agree with me. But we are to be bearers of truth. So when is it demanded of us not to be silent, but to speak the truth in love? Let’s take this morning in history class. When the history teacher was saying, “We’re evolved from apes,” I, as the special education teacher in the class, was taking in the information along with the students, to be able to help them study later. Was that a speak-the-truth moment? Was I to stand and speak out against that statement?
Or is it better to wait for a private moment to speak to the teacher alone? I had a great experience a few years ago when I was in the science class with a brilliant science educator. I used this approach. “Do you mind if I purchase a set of The Creation Trilogy and place it in this classroom for students to be able to pick up?” She was delighted and asked if she could please read them first. She took the three books home, devoured them, and shared them with her husband and her extended family. As a result, she and her husband turned their lives over to Christ, joined a church, and made Jesus the center of their lives!
What an opportunity to be able to affect, not only the lives of students, but the lives of their teachers as we stay faithful in the public schools. I pray for us to be sensitive to know the right timing and the right circumstances so that the truth will be planted into fertile soil.
Copyright Cheryl Skid. Email [email protected]
I LOVE THIS! Thank you so much for sharing. I’m also a special education teacher and I love the opportunity that we have to come alongside our co-teachers and learn and grow with them and demonstrate the Gospel to our unsaved students and colleagues.
Amen on the approach and the response you had for your idea with the science teacher.
What an inspiring story!
It reminds me of:
“Finally, all of you, be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble. Do not return evil for evil, or insult for insult; but, on the contrary, a blessing, because to this you were called, that you might inherit a blessing.”
1 Peter 3:8-9
You received a grace from God to wait for the moment and you passed it on!
Double blessings…!! Geri