We Need Him Every Day

The title of this article carries with it a simple message that was kneaded into the dough of my soul this past Friday. I’m sure I could’ve preached a sermon or two about it before this episode, but an experience of it is worth much more to me than a sermon, memories and tears so much more than maxims and syllogisms. For you, my reader, who must take it in second-hand, I pray God gives you some measure of what I have tasted and seen.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THIRD PERIOD, while my kids were taking a test and I was doing the rounds, a student raised his hand to ask for a sharpened pencil—a common request from those who are about to be caught with no classwork done. I padded my right side. Nothing but my keys. I reached into my rarely used left pocket and found a pencil, which I removed quickly, pulling along with it a few shredded Kleenexes, once wet with tears but become crusty. A potent thought popped up. I handed the student the pencil and continued my rounds, fingering the Kleenexes. They reminded me of something that I thought I ought to write down. From the podium I grabbed the clipboard on which I’d been keeping a rough record of my students’ behavior throughout the day. In the middle of the top sheet was a prayer, or maybe a note-to-self: “My God, my God, your mercy is so great.” (When did I write that? It must have been during first period.) I recorded the left-pocket discovery just below it, and then threw the Kleenexes away discreetly. Why jot down this event? Why bother continuing to recall this morning’s tears when I could just destroy the evidence of them and move on?

Because these had been the tears of God.

EARLIER THAT MORNING, when I entered the copy room, I encountered one of my colleagues whom I would often find in this very place before school. Despite efforts to appear ready to tackle the day, she could tell that I had been crying.

“Oh! What’s wrong?” she asked feelingly.

I told her that I had been crying all morning, but that my tears were a good thing. “I don’t know if you’re a believer or not, but God speaks, and when he speaks it can be hard to hear.” After a moment I added, “The tears are a good thing, this morning.”

She nodded silently. Not a believer. We went about our business.

EARLIER THAT MORNING, I stood in my kitchen dressed for work. It must have been just before 06:00. I slowly poured coffee into my travel mug. In the dimness, it looked like ink. The half-and-half, next, softly trickled in, forming at first little storm-clouds against the blackness. They billowed and grew. Eventually these clouds overcame the whole sky in the mug, even the unseen realms behind the sky, and transformed the little world in there from night to day.

Suddenly, after the coffee whitened, a prayer escaped the trap of my fleshly mind: “God, if you don’t give me grace today, I won’t make it.”

By the time I had the lid on the mug, I was crying. So little time had elapsed. I had not spilled my coffee. I had not remembered some past frustration. I had not thought ahead to a dreadful future.

These were the tears of God.

I cried because God spoke.

To tell the story well and rightly, I should not yet put what he said into quotation marks, because I didn’t sort it out or force an articulation of it until later. In short, he impressed upon me my weakness and foolishness for such a prayer. “God, if you don’t give me grace today, I won’t make it.”

Weakness. My flesh raged at this. The first tears were hot and angry, aware of my inadequacies, waiting at the edge of my eyelid and threatening to announce my failures to the world. I couldn’t make it on my own, not even for one day, a Friday.

Foolishness. My spirit broke at this. Those first tears were pushed off the edge into the oblivion on my cheeks, followed now by genuine, liquid sadness. Of course I couldn’t make it without him! Fool!

These first words from God and the corresponding tears threw me into darkness. And then, just as suddenly, a drop of cream. A new word poured into me, forming at first little storm-clouds against the blackness. They billowed and grew. They mushroomed until all of me was changed, homogeneously tainted by grace as coffee is whitened by cream.

This is the picture of revelation.

These were the tears of God.

Beatitude. My spirit revived. The rest of my tears spoke of mixed gratitude and pleasure. Not a day goes by that his grace isn’t here with me; every day that I “make it” is a day that he has made.

Eventually my housemate noticed me in this state. He had been waiting on me for a ride to school. He tried to comfort me, and then the whole matter burst out of me in a few words: “We need him every day.” He agreed. We shared this thought for the next thirty minutes on our way to school. I cried the whole way there and tried to sop up my tears with those Kleenexes. He prayed before we  went into school to make copies. And I knew without a doubt that these were the tears of God.

Jesus Christ said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15.5).

Other Blog: Hard

I put up a post, “Hard,” on the blog I keep officially for the Mississippi Teacher Corps.

Cross-country sans Shoes

Today I helped one of the TFA teachers at my school (also a first-year teacher here) get her cross-country runners to a meet in Itta Bena. She invited me along to take splits at the mile marker, under the assumption that this meet would be run like the ones she was used to in Minnesota (her home State). In those meets, runners have numbers pinned to their shirts. In those meets, there is a mile marker. Alas, this was not what we found there. Because we did not know the course well, my job changed from split-timer to cheerleader. I just jogged out to the middle of the course to encourage the runners as they went. While I was there, I also decided to shout nonsense about breathing and posture, but this was not part of my official job description. It was a good time. I got to see some of my own students outside of class, and enjoyed every minute of not wearing a tie in their presence. After the meet we did another run to get the kids some training on the soft surface, which is lacking in Indianola, and I ran about four miles with some of the top boys. (I hadn’t run in weeks before this, and I’m amazed that I did so well, even ending with a sprint-race against them.)

What inspired me to report on this incident is connected to the detail that makes it one of those adventures quintessentially “Mississippi”:

I woke up from a nap this afternoon with a throbbing itching between two of my toes and on the top of my foot. I must’ve run through some poison sumac, or some such nastiness.—“But Philip,” my reader might say, “surely you were wearing running shoes as you jogged out.”—Yes, dear reader, I did go in running shoes, but I was not wearing them when I jogged on to the course. Instead I was wearing some black and pink flip-flops.—“Your flip-flops?”—No.—“Whose flip-flops?”—I had to give my shoes to one of the girls who did not have sneakers. Another girl was kind enough to offer me her flip-flops for the day, because I did not foresee the need to bring my own.

It became clear that a good number of our students—on the cross-country team—do not have sneakers! Some of them have basketball shoes, some have sprinting spikes made for running on a track, and some of them have slip-on Converse® knock-offs. Some of them do not have a shoe at all suitable for running. Only a few of them have sneakers. (No wonder almost all of them get shin-splints!)

I was shocked, but only for that brief moment when I was offering up my sneakers. Immediately after, I remembered that I am in the Mississippi Delta.

One of the big projects of the assistant coach, the TFA teacher who invited me, is to get donations of shoes from her contacts in the North. She has a box of a few dozen sneakers coming down for the kids this week, hopefully in time for the meet next Saturday. Her work with this team, in areas such as this, has been tremendous so far. She currently serves as the assistant coach under one of the other staff members at the school, who gets paid as the head coach but does nothing except drive a bus. This other individual does not run, does not know how to teach running, does not communicate with the assistant coach, and does not care about the budget-less cross-country team in the end. A sad state.

Regardless, the assistant coach is making huge strides (pun!), and in her dedication has become a model for my own pursuits with students. She already made me promise that I would come on as an assistant coach next year. I look forward to volunteering more with the cross-country team, even if it means I run through poison sumac for fun on a Saturday morning.

I love working here.

No Class Left Behind

One of my better insights came to me today as I edged my way through to success: no two classes are the same. Before today, I had been treating each of my classes the same. I was ignoring the dynamic, the peculiar character of each class as a whole, created by the members of that class. To have the same expectations for each is fine, but the methods for discipline and management do not need to be homogeneous. This came to me all at once, as I noticed that some of my chronically sleepy students were awake and attentive for the whole period because of an adjustment to the beginning of class. If, within the first twenty minutes of a 104-minute block, I “open the floor” (my procedure for allowing them to chat quietly while they work), it may look a lot different from my other classes, but it takes advantage of a certain dynamic. I would rather have a chatty classroom than a sleeping classroom.

Today, I have the distinct sense that I am learning from some of my mistakes. Finally. Now, when’ll the next catastrophic bundle of stress hit me?

A Lyrical Sidenote

I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to some of my favorite musicians and singers, more than usual.  Jason Upton, Jon Foreman, and Josh Garrels I played and replayed on my laptop when visiting family in New York over the winter break.  Each brings something different to the table, but all of them share an outpouring of the heart immersed in things from above.  One matter particularly meaningful to me in this season is a musician’s willingness to express anxieties.  More on that later.

And I said, please
Don’t talk about the end
Don’t talk about how
Every living thing goes away
She said, friend
All along
Thought I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die

—Jon Foreman, “Learning How to Die”

Everyone says that it’s alright
Living in darkness every night
But I think it’s time, Lord it’s time
I’m ready to give up all my sin
But I don’t know where to begin
And I think it’s time to find out
And make that change

—Josh Garrels, “Decision”

How much time will I keep wasting?
How much cheap wine will I keep tasting?
Been to church and now I’m back again
Tired of living for the pride of men
And the world may think I’m crazy when I don’t run with them
But it’s just plain idolatry when God can’t have all of me

—Jason Upton,“Will of God”

I’m not sure why it always goes downhill
Why broken cisterns never could stay filled
I’ve spent ten years singing gravity away
But the water keeps on falling from the sky
And here tonight while the stars are blacking out
With every hope and dream I’ve ever had in doubt
I’ve spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away
But the water keeps on falling from my eyes

—Jon Foreman, “The Cure for Pain”

Will a man find a home
If he walks the world alone?
Searching for a promised land
Another day, walk and wait
For this choice to end in fate
Searching for life among the dead
Once I held you near, and words were clear
My hands rested upon your heart
Now by night and flame I call your name
My love, when will an answer be found?

—Josh Garrels, “My Child”

And if I were really honest
And the truth were known
It may sound a little funny
This is what my prayer would be:
I don’t know what to do
But my eyes are on you
I don’t know what to do
But my eyes are on you

—Jason Upton “Gideon”

A Testimony of Outstretched Arms

What follows is another quoted article from my old blog.  The unnamed sin to which I referred numerous times is masturbation, a strange question that plagues the mind of most young men who put any emphasis on the word purity.  I put this up as an informative warning, but there is nothing graphic about its description below and it can be read, I think, by anyone without offense.  It should be noted that I am not making universal claims about masturbation, but about conscience.  If my reader’s own conscience is stirred about masturbation particularly, then I thank God.

I lay on my backside with my arms stretched up to the ceiling—no, to God. I didn’t know how to escape the torment. I couldn’t run away from the temptation, because it was with me, inside me. This temptation is like a shadow, it seems, that cannot be detached by struggling with hands and feet and teeth and sweat and blood. Everyone experiences this temptation, for I know that no temptation overtook me except what is common to all humankind (1Cor. 10:13). Like my shadow, it would always be touching at least one part of my body, because I cannot keep my feet off the ground for more than a few seconds. But even shadows are melted, dissolved, destroyed utterly, in the presence of the Father of lights, in whom “there is no variation or shifting shadow” (Jam. 1:7 NASB) What? Is the devil saying that even the Great Light would cause me to cast a shadow behind me? Not if his light also shines within me! So I wait for that day with longing when “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Re. 21:23 ESV; cf. 22:5, Is. 60:20)—to be surrounded and filled with light that overcomes the uncomprehending darkness!

I couldn’t escape my shadow as I lay there. As much as I affirm Paul’s command to “flee from idolatry” and all sin (1Cor. 10:14), I was on my back with no strength in my legs, because there was nowhere to run but upward, and I had no means to get there but the strong arms of my Father, to whom I was reaching. With plain confidence Paul teaches, “With the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (v.13). Some New Age “sage” may prescribe a remedy for escape, if he admits to avoiding sin at all, by means of inward contemplation or confessing that the body is illusory. I, however, had to pray to the Almighty; otherwise I would drown in my own shadow. To go inward would’ve been of great benefit only if I had a mind to consult my conscience or the Holy Spirit. But when I looked inward I did not set my mind of things of the spirit but on things of the flesh, and there was only death looming at the advice of inward contemplation. To say that the body is illusory would’ve given me adequate excuse, like the Gnostics conjure up, to dive into my sin, for if the body is an illusion, then the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is nothing more than a stage show (cf. 1Pe. 2:24), and also the sins committed by the body are illusions, and my conscience ought to be free in all lawlessness. But “we must not put Christ to the test” (1Cor. 10:9). No, I had to pray and trust. “God is faithful” (v.13), and only by the mightiest hand can his people be delivered from slavery (cf. Ex. 3:18-20). My help couldn’t come from my own devices. The priest Aaron was commanded to bless the people thus: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Nu. 6:24-26). Blessing comes from the Lord, the Lord, the Lord. I cannot bless myself and keep myself, my face does not shine with glory that can heal, and the storm in my mind cannot give itself peace. The Lord must look upon me and be gracious to me if I am to live another day.

On my back, I began to speak to him in sheer desperation, and I recounted to him everything that I believed, scrambling in my heart to gain some defense against the tempter. This was my honest prayer: “I believe that you created the whole world, and formed and filled it—establishing your law and imbuing it with your glory. I believe that you created the first humans in your image. I believe that you spoke to them. I believe that they disobeyed and were corrupted because of their desire. I believe that you are holy and require holiness of your people. I believe that you delivered your people from oppression in Egypt. I believe that you gave them the written Law to bless them.

“O Lord, I am confused. There is no written commandment against my sin, and if not for my conscience crying out I would not see any trouble in my soul because of this. A while ago I thought I heard a voice telling me that this was sin, and I thought it was your voice. But it is not anywhere written. How am I to know?”

I paused for a moment, and then continued, because God in his grace made my conscience bold: “I believe that you called Abram and gave him your promise. I believe that you call your people to live by the law of faith, not the law of works. Oh! Now I see, Lord. There was nothing written for Abram. There was only your presence. He heard and responded. Abram was called to a mystery and given a promise that he could not see, but he walked all the same, and he believed in the promises. His faith was credited to him as righteousness. So all whom you have brought into the glory of your Son are called to a mystery and given a promise that can only be seen by a faithful heart.

“It’s faithful obedience to remember what you spoke to me and keep the commandment. And believing that you have spoken to me, and that you do not lie, and that you have never changed since the beginning, and that you always confirm what is written in the Scriptures,—to keep the commandment can only be credited to me as righteousness. I will obey the voice of the Spirit and consider the true testimony of the written words.”

It was an important prayer. In my temptation I was inclined only to think of God as a set of written words, a volume of moral information. The devil will always try to reduce the living God down to an inert and lifeless code—portraying what the Lord says as an algorithm instead of something “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The written words are not God. For how can the Maker of the world be contained in paper pages and leather binding if “heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him”? (2Ch. 2:6) Jesus rebuked the Jews who searched the Scriptures assuming they could obtain eternal life in them, because really the life is found in Christ himself, and the Scriptures bear witness about him (Joh. 5:39f.). Jesus says the word was not “abiding” in these Jews, who had never heard or seen God (vv.37f.). He doesn’t mean that they hadn’t memorized enough of the Old Testament writings. He means that they were so full, perhaps even full of “sacred” knowledge, that they were unable to provide lodging for the words, in the same way that the inn in the city of David did not have room for Messiah (cf. Lu. 2:7). They knew the words well enough, but they did not have spiritual understanding, which comes only by the voice of the the Spirit.

Likewise, as I was there on my back, I had been regarding the written words of God while not regarding the Spirit, who had beforehand spoken to me about this sin. I remembered that the apostle wrote, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1Pe. 1:16; cf. Lev. 11:44), and another, “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1Th. 4:7); however, I would not let these words abide in me, to teach me what it is to be holy before the Lord. I would not consider these as applying to the sin to which I was being tempted. “This act has nothing to do with holiness or profanity,” the devil would say. “You did not hear the Spirit say that. It was your own thought. You have not seen the glory of God,” he would continue. If he can get me to disregard the Spirit, then he can get me to disconnect the words commanding holiness from the profanity of the sin.

But when I prayed there, the Spirit gave me words anew, reminding me of Abram and the faith that comes from hearing. The Lord reached down and picked me up. The Spirit’s arms wrapped around me and banished the shadow, relieved me from the temptation. My means of escape was not an algorithm, not a ten-step plan, not inward contemplation, not denial of the world. I was rescued by the abiding word of God and the fellowship with the Spirit, who brought the written words to life in me.

God restored me that day. Praise the Lord. I became again like the disciples after the resurrection: “They believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken” (Joh. 2:22). I believe the Scripture and the Spirit’s words. So I stood and walked away from the temptation, by the Lord’s grace.