Saturday, July 15, 2017

And I have a second ziplock with lots of different sized ants crawling all over a dead cockroach.

I will listen to what the LORD God is saying, for He is speaking peace to His faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to Him. Psalm 85:8

He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.” Judges 13:18

As I wade hip-deep through the muck of Judges this month, it is all pretty much beyond my understanding, God’s ways with His straying and stumbling peoples.

Although, I guess even my ways are beyond understanding. Just before I went to bed last night, I turned on my flashlight iPhone and took an empty oatmeal can out to the little river of grey water muck that lines both sides of the street to catch sewer cockroaches for my class this morning.

I am teaching about Opens or Warm-ups that tie into student background knowledge. And although my four-inch cockroaches don’t exactly match the warm fuzziness of the inspiring article we read Thursday: By now your students will be buzzing with the understanding that yours is no ordinary classroom. The startling expectations, the joyful learning, and the quiet thrill in their heart is evidence enough that it’s going to be a remarkable year, at least it will get their attention.

And Our Father wants our attention.

And if one is seeing, really seeing (which is the overarching theme of today’s lessons), the glorious thread weaving throughout all of the Old Testament craziness is His kindness and patience. Man, that Sampson was a big goofball who careened through bad painful choice after bad painful choice and yet, somehow, at the end of it all, bound and blinded, he at last came to the end of himself and turned his heart to his sovereign Lord.

And if sunsets settling over the Rincons don't do it, then our loving Father will turn to cockroaches or locusts or the death of dreams to draw our eyes back to Him and His unending love.


  

No comments:

Post a Comment