It is not just the content of today’s lesson that will prevent life from causing the recitation to fade into memory, it is also the teacher of this lesson. As a side, he would not want me to write these words for all to see, but I feel compelled to do so because the teacher is also my friend.
Today’s lesson came from the 9th chapter of Mark’s Gospel. The bookends that sandwiched this provoking lesson were, first “What would you do in thirty minutes spent with Christ?” This question alone would have sustained the entire lesson, with no other word being said out loud after the question was posed. Yet it is the partner bookend that has hung with me all the day. The teacher closed today’s course when he spoke of events in his life that have come onto the horizon almost simultaneously. Any of these events alone would be enough to cause fear and anxiety to most of us. To face them all at once would surely be overwhelming.
In a way that our class members have grown to recognize, the teacher was able to separate his personal life from the lesson while enticing us to consider God’s word in our own life, even when we knew it was his life that the lesson had gently led us to. If there was concerns, fear or anxieties that the teacher is facing now they were concealed by the professionalism of a great leader.
We will all face giants in our lifetime. With them will come many questions, many concerns and sometimes many tears. As I listened to the teacher and thought about my own giants I considered again the first question-what if I had thirty minutes with Jesus? There would be so many things that I would want to say, want to ask. So many of His words that I have read that I would want to hear Him say aloud. The thought of what to do with thirty minutes began to set it’s on anxiety into place!
So instead of supposing I instead began recalling. It is these memories conjured that led me to where I sit now. The pupil encouraging the teacher.
It suffices to say that life has presented me with many giants, most of my own making. I will not give these behemoths any detail, most have been defeated, those that have not do not deserve limelight. There was never thirty minutes with Jesus that helped me survive the angst these giants hurled. Thirty minutes with Christ would have been a welcome miracle. But thirty minutes was not needed. It was in just a moment that each time, with each giant, that Christ calmed the storm, that He wiped the tears, that He gave me hope. The outcome of the events were not foretold to me. As a matter of fact some did not end as I would have hoped (God’s plan is bigger than our hope). In just a moment I was gently reminded-”Be still, and know that am God.”
It is these moments that allow us to survive the hours, the days and the years. All of life’s events, it’s giants, swirl around us at breakneck speeds. We don’t know where they will take us, what harm they may cause or what joys they may bring. But if we just “be still”, the blur will begin to clear, the noise will fade, and there in the midst of our life we will see God.
Thank you John for a wonderful lesson. Now it is time to “be still and know.”
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