“Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.” – Philemon 7
Paul writes this verse from a jail cell. He doesn’t want to be there, but God has given him joy and encouragement through Philemon’s love, not in some future circumstance, but here and now. Not “Your love will give me” but “Your love has given me.”
So many of my daily frustrations are the product of my desire to be anywhere but where I am, even when my intention is spiritual. I want to engage in discipleship, but not in my own house. Give me strangers rather than my own wife or daughter! Or I want to read the one book on theology I don’t have at hand because that’s the one that’s going to have the answer that’s been plaguing me. Or I want to celebrate Christian community, except when I’m actually in the dull part of a sermon on Sunday.
I listened to this podcast with Seth Godin today, and the bulk of Godin’s conversation with Brian Koppelman is concerned with how to process negative feedback. Godin suggests saying to the nay-sayer, “That is fascinating. Thank you.” in order to diffuse the anger that negative feedback might engender. The grounding for this truth, that this moment really is fascinating and an occasion for gratitude, is rooted in the fact that God made it possible and that every good and perfect gift comes from him.
I want my students to feel joy and encouragement in my class, even though I know that the classroom is ground zero for the “somewhere else” feeling that education can provoke. If they can’t be present—mentally and emotionally, not just physically—in class, they will most likely have difficulty being where they are doing work outside the class as well. I pray that God gives me the love for my students I’ll need to transform that space into one of practice and learning and discipleship, not simply a purgatory where students bide time until they actually learn.