Change. Development. Growth. These are terms often used to describe the progress in a school year’s time. How is it measured? At what point do we achieve it? At what point do we discover its presence in our lives?
Is it the child who refused to work alone, afraid of the failure independency might bring, but who now, through newfound confidence, is quickest to jump to help others at their slightest hint of confusion? Is it the child who spent most every week in the office because she just could not get it together but who now strives to be the responsible one, because it clicked one day that she has every potential to, so now she strives desperately to hear “well done” and earn top awards in her class? Is it the child who wouldn’t speak unless spoken to because the insecurity of English did not allow him much of a voice, but who nowadays can barely contain the booming personality he now vulnerably trusts to his little world around him? Is it the child whose hasty and impulsive behavior caused warnings to precede him before one even laid eyes on him, but who now is the first to seek forgiveness of even the slightest of errors, on his own accord, from the depths of the most beautiful, repentant heart? Or is it the one whom the Father relentlessly sought after, rescued, and restored from a life devoid of intimate relationship; the one whom He called “Mine” then called to serve these beautiful souls in the second grade? The answer is in all of these. Whether it is faith like a child or faith from the one who has known the Father since she was a child, growth can occur in all of us.
There is no limitation of age or wisdom or life experience. Because when you let the Father in, growth is inevitable. In His relentless pursuit of you, there is no way you can ever stay the same. Because just like the earthly father did not allow his prodigal son to reach even the property line before he ran with reckless abandon towards his lost one (Luke 15:20), our Heavenly Father does not wait for us to find His arms but meets us where we are and wholly embraces us for who we are. From the youngest among us in our class of eleven, to the one called teacher, growth is what God is doing in our little corner of the world. Every day, little by little, His grace pours throughout our classroom and brings about change and restoration drawing us closer and closer towards His kingdom.
