A Call to Christian Teachers

'. . .your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. And you will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”'

Isaiah 30:20b-22

The headlines are bleak. The world is shifting. It's easy to be discouraged by the way Christians specifically and Conservatives generally are being actively targeted. The Left is stepping up its game. Where is God?

The passage from Isaiah 30 is a glimpse of God's heart for Israel, and by extension, for Gentile believers. The world can shift its values, but we are asked not to follow--not to turn to the right or to the left. In fact, we are to live lives that are purer and higher, defiling our own idols, scattering them, disowning them. In a time when the world has disowned the concept of Sin, we are asked to be iconoclasts, smashers of idols.

The idols we have allowed ourselves have to go. Whatever it is that takes our eyes off God and our God-given calling has to go. A big thing can be an idol--envy, lust, self. A little thing like an iPhone can make a very pretty idol, too.

The world doesn't know where it's going or what it's doing. It just wants to go anywhere, so long as it's away from God. It'll take us all with it if it can. We have to stand somewhere and draw a line. We have to walk a path that God has blessed: "This is the way, walk in it."

We have to make the decision for ourselves. I can't force you and you can't force me. I hope that when I'm no longer here and my children have to choose to live for God or live for idols, they'll choose the right path, the one Way.

And these are things I can't mull over with my students, since I am a public school teacher who abides by the law. If it means so much to me to light the way to God for others, how can I stay in this line of work? How can I be at peace when I have to hold my peace to keep my job?

The answer is faith. One of my heroes is Christian missionary martyr Jim Elliot, who said,

"Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”

We must do all for the glory of God and do it diligently. Examples abound of Christians who said not a word but were lights for the Gospel.

Another missionary hero, Olympic athlete Eric Liddell, said,

“I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel his pleasure.”

Are you a writer? Write for God, every word, whether it be a grocery list or an editorial. Are you a teacher? Teach for Him. Your students may not hear you speak of your God, but they will learn of Him by knowing you. Faith makes it possible. Teachers, we can't see the path to its end, but there will be a voice behind us saying, "This is the way, walk in it."

And we do not walk by sight. We walk by faith.