"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
Isaiah 1:18
There is a student in one of my classes who is a member of a gang, and writes about scary things that happen to him every day. It almost seems like that gang life is the only thing that he values. But the other day I had my students all write a letter (practicing different kinds of formal writing) and he wrote about how he was in school because he realizes that he needs to change... he doesn't want to end up in jail for the rest of his life.
He comes late, sometimes an hour late, every day... and turns everything in late, but I don't typically take points off because I don't want him to fail the class. I mean, maybe he's fine, but the whole school thing seems almost like a lifeline to me... helping him to find something else, something better in life than just the gang. And this scripture kind of reminded me of that today.
God is our teacher, and he knows that we show up late, and that we don't put all the effort we should into learning. He knows we are crappy students, but he isn't going to kick us out of class or fail us, because he knows that we need this... we need him. And so, he'll reason with us, and give us make up assignments (repentance), and work with us one on one, and do ANYTHING that he can, so that we can learn the basics and move on to the next class rather than fail, as we probably deserve most of the time.
No matter how bad we are, we can be clean and pure with God's help. We can be in the last week of class with no points, and still, he'll help us make up the work, and work with us to learn the material. There is *always* an alternative to sin, because God hangs in there with us, giving us a chance to come back and pass the class. Not a perfect analogy, but something that I was thinking about today.
Isaiah 1:18
There is a student in one of my classes who is a member of a gang, and writes about scary things that happen to him every day. It almost seems like that gang life is the only thing that he values. But the other day I had my students all write a letter (practicing different kinds of formal writing) and he wrote about how he was in school because he realizes that he needs to change... he doesn't want to end up in jail for the rest of his life.
He comes late, sometimes an hour late, every day... and turns everything in late, but I don't typically take points off because I don't want him to fail the class. I mean, maybe he's fine, but the whole school thing seems almost like a lifeline to me... helping him to find something else, something better in life than just the gang. And this scripture kind of reminded me of that today.
God is our teacher, and he knows that we show up late, and that we don't put all the effort we should into learning. He knows we are crappy students, but he isn't going to kick us out of class or fail us, because he knows that we need this... we need him. And so, he'll reason with us, and give us make up assignments (repentance), and work with us one on one, and do ANYTHING that he can, so that we can learn the basics and move on to the next class rather than fail, as we probably deserve most of the time.
No matter how bad we are, we can be clean and pure with God's help. We can be in the last week of class with no points, and still, he'll help us make up the work, and work with us to learn the material. There is *always* an alternative to sin, because God hangs in there with us, giving us a chance to come back and pass the class. Not a perfect analogy, but something that I was thinking about today.
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