Good Experience--Number Three

Being a Teacher’s Assistant (T.A.) in high school is one of the easiest classes that you could take. A majority of the time a teacher will run out of work for you to do and release you from class early. Depending on the teach and the class, said work often consists of grading papers, cutting shapes and designs out, or helping kids. I T.A.ed for my science teacher, Mr. Newton, during my junior and senior years of high school. Mr. Newton was also my youth pastor, so we had a comfortable role with one another. I enjoyed going to the class; talking to him about God and what I was learning with Him was always what I looked forward to during my school days. But, since Mr. Newton taught classes such as AP Biology, AP Physics, and the harder science classes at my high school, grading his papers and entering every single grade and extra credit assignment and the like was not always the easiest task for an unscientific high school student to accomplish.

To understand why this is significant in my life, you would have to have a basic understanding of Mr. Newton’s schedule. He held more than one job aside from being a full-time teacher, was a youth pastor for my youth group, and had a family to take care of. Unfortunately, because of his multiple jobs, he was often unable to spend as much time with his family as he could have. Being a teacher, he would often find himself staying after school to finish grading papers and entering them into the grade book. This is where I came in.

Nearly every day after school before track practice I would stay in Mr. Newton’s classroom with his spare laptop grading his papers and entering them into the online grade book, allowing Mr. Newton to go right home after school to be with his family—to utilize the precious time with them that he didn’t get a lot of. 

I bring this circumstance up simply to convey the aspect of me that longs to help people. One day about a month ago I was sitting in church listening to a sermon about following God’s will for your life. Thinking about that, I questioned, “What am I to do for God with my life?” A few strings of words came back to me:

What was Christ’s mission?

Luke 2:49 (NKJV) “And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

What is my mission?

1 Peter 2:21 (NIV) “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.”

Thus, perhaps my mission of emulating Christ will play into what I am to do. If Christ was about His Father’s business, then so should I be.

And what was God’s business?

“And there you have a proof that he was about his Father's business. It was his Father's business made him sweat great drops of blood; his Father's business ploughed his back with many gory furrows; his Father's business pricked his temple with the thorn crown; his Father's business made him mocked and spit upon; his Father's business made him go about bearing his cross; his Father's business made him despise the shame when, naked, he hung upon the tree; his Father's business made him yield himself to death, though he needed not to die if so he had not pleased; his Father's business made him tread the gloomy shades of Gehenna, and descend into the abodes of death; his Father's business made him preach to the spirits in prison; and his Father's business took him up to heaven, where he sitteth on the right hand of God, doing his Father's business still! His Father's business makes him plead day and night for Sion; the same business shall make him come as the Judge of quick and dead, to divide the sheep from the goats; the same business shall make him gather together in one, all people who dwell on the face of the earth! Oh, glory to thee, Jesus; thou hast done it! Thou hast done thy Father's business well."

–C. H. Spurgeon, “Christ About His Father’s Business” Sermon No. 122

In that same sermon, Spurgeon urges us to imitate Christ. I take this as a person call to be about the people of my Father—and that’s everybody.

Christ came to bring us back into that holy communion with the Father, the God of all living things, that we fell out of near the beginning of creation. The Fall drew us away, disobedience kept us there, and Christ brought us back—shined a light where there was no light and which the darkness did not understand—called His children to His side, His bride into His courts.

Being about His people can look like a lot of different things; some people pick up the cross of a missionary. Some are teachers, some lawyers, some doctors, some businessmen, but all are about other people. Missionaries to bring the Gospel, teachers to impart knowledge to the simpler, lawyers to defend others’ causes, doctors to preserve lives, businessmen to get people what they need… the list goes on. I simply long to love others with the love of God—the love that is not of myself, but from Him, by Him, and by the grace of God, through me.

I stayed after class because I wanted to bless my teacher by allowing him to go home to his family. Asking God for opportunities like that are awesome ways to have God give you people to love on. I pray that, in my life, it hasn’t ended with Mr. Newton. I pray that His love will continue on through me every day.