Hope is in the Lord and we are to be like Him.

On my last blog I talked about the need we all have for hope.  I spoke about an experience I had that helped shape some of my thoughts about how to share the love of Christ by ministering Grace to others.  The passage below helped me shape my thoughts during this experience and I want to share this experience with you.

^{Lamentations 3:19} Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.  ²⁰ Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me. 2¹ This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. ²² The LORD'S loving kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ²⁴ "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." ²⁵ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. ²⁶ It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD.

I am really struggling with how to relate this story and not lose the significance of the principle.  There is a whole heart attitude in this that effects the way we even think about the people around us.  As I suggest in the title, we must become more like Christ if we are to call ourselves Christian at all.  In the very heart attitudes we carry around (even the ones no one ever sees overtly displayed) we must genuinely adopt the Love of Christ and seek to live it out towards others on more than just a surface level.


The problem I had with the child who is at the center of this story, is that I didn't like him.  I could pretend to like him, even love him, but it wasn't in my heart to do it.  I began to realize that this child was exposing something seriously flawed in me.  I could not extend grace to someone I didn't like.  As adults we tend to accept this kind of attitude in ourselves toward those who have offended or angered us.  We don't really see it as a problem, even though Jesus did.


Jesus explains the problem of this lack of forgiveness in the story of the king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves in Matthew 18:23-35.  We find a slave forgiven a great debt who does not honor the king who forgave him by showing the same forgiveness to others.  This is a big deal and it is this same characteristic of God that Lamentations describes and Jesus calls us to emulate.  If it wasn't for God's willingness to show me new mercy every day, how could I stand before Him?  But do I honor God by showing new mercy every day to others?


As regards to the child in question, in my defense, showing grace like that is very difficult to do, humanly speaking.  This child was only a 4 year old but he was a problem.  He was difficult for every teacher he had.  This young man was not only hard to deal with he was disruptive to the class and impossible to ignore.  He would not listen to your instructions, and he created circumstances that routinely forced the other teachers and myself to seek the parents and ask them to take him out.

The worst part was that I found myself not just wanting to avoid the child but actually dreading having him in class.  I even started to dislike him on a personal level.  That was the wake up call that caused me to pull up short.  I was supposed to be a Christian and an educator and this kid was a challenge but not my enemy.  I began to seriously pray for an answer and seek the Lord's help with this situation.

I began to observe more and try to discover what made this child tick.  He was in his own right a difficult child.  There may have been some slight mental handicap or other problem that contributed to his way of doing things, but he was still just a kid, and he needed to know the Lord and be loved.  Then it clicked and I finally began to see the connection.  None of us were living out Lamentations by showing him new compassion, or Matthew by showing him true grace.  All the teachers were anticipating trouble from him and holding last week's offences against him.  

Sure enough I began to observe that teachers were saying things like, "Now, Billy, I don't want any trouble out of you today."  and "Billy, I don't want to have to go get your mom today, so make sure you behave."  Then they would proceed to wait for him to mess up and send him out.  He didn't really have to work hard at it to get in trouble either.  They were expecting his behavior to be bad and he never failed to deliver.


But more on that later...

Hope is in the Lord.

Wow, I have been gone for a long time.  I hope everyone will forgive me for my negligence.  It is one of the many struggles that I have when it comes to managing time and resources.  We did not have Internet for a long time and it was virtually impossible for me to manage a blog without it.  


It finally became evident that I would have to invest some of our resources in finding an Internet Service Provider as school began.  Since the girls are both in college now and need access to it daily and the younger kids need it for their school lessons and research, it seems like a reasonable expense.  


So here we go again, the school year in full swing for all five kids, and me trying to make ends meet between work, kids, everyday needs and keeping a roof over our heads.  Sometimes I am very hard pressed and I feel like there is too much on my plate.  It is easy to begin to feel hopeless.  I wonder if I will ever feel like I have a cushion or if I will always be on the edge of overwhelmed.


Where is hope to be found?  How do we live in such away that our children feel that there is hope?  Lamentations is a powerful book filled with hope and chapter 3 is a magnificent resource for understanding many things about life, our circumstances, and the Lord's role in things.  It is well worth the time you might take to give it a read.  I warn you though it takes a while to get to the hope in Chapter 3.  The first 18 verses describe utter hopelessness.  The worst part is that the hopelessness comes from the Lord as a result of His righteous wrath against sin.


Verse 18 ends on the happy note:

So I say, "My strength has perished,

         And so has my hope from the LORD."

You might ask what is the point of this happy blog?  Well, I have had some experience with teaching and parenting and I have found that even the smallest of children need hope.  Hope that they can please their parent.  Hope that they can please their teacher.  Hope that when we fail, somehow we can be restored.  All of us need hope that we can get back in the good graces of those in authority over us.  When we as adults show grace to those over whom we exercise authority, we are demonstrating the Love of God in a most tangible way.


After the first 18 verses, the writer gets to the good part.  He remembers the grace of God and God's mercy...

^{Lamentations 3:19} Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.  ²⁰ Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me. 2¹ This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. ²² The LORD'S loving kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ²⁴ "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." ²⁵ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. ²⁶ It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. 

I often struggle to live with hope, but these verses help remind me of the source of my strength and hope.  It helps me remember that my circumstances are not where I find hope, but my hope is in the Lord and He will never fail to keep His promises.  


I am going to keep this blog short, and next time I want to share an experience that I had as a Children's Church Teacher.  This experience had a profound impact on me and the way I do things.  It shapes my thoughts and approach toward the people in my life.  But, more on that later...