The Necessity of Love

I have to use the same quote that Mike referred to in his post, as it also holds relevance to my current situation as well.  "I ignored my human limits and ran myself ragged to do more and more for God.  I regarded negative feelings such as anger or depression as anti-God and avoided them."  This statement, more accurately disposed toward my current state would read something more like this, "I ignore my human limits and run myself ragged to do more and more for God.  I regard negative feelings such as anger and depression as anti-God and avoid them."

The weekend before the Admin Retreat, I was working on the PowerPoint for Monday's lesson and could hardly focus on the material.  I felt overwhelmed/overcome with depression.  The thought of waking up the next morning and teaching held absolutely no appeal.  It wasn't till the following weekend (during the retreat) that I realized I had been ignoring my human limits, running myself ragged, and avoiding negative feelings as anti-God.  My schedule had become unhealthily routinized to the point where I felt robotic.  But, this verse reminded me of the convincing truth of the Gospel and the redemptive work of Christ: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

I had become enslaved to my work, because if I worked harder and strived to "do more" for God, then He would love me more.  This is the first time I have identified so readily with a performance-based theology. 

If I have learned anything from my experience in Texas, it has been that we all have the same human necessities, despite culture, socioeconomic status, occupation, and so forth.  At the forefront is the necessity to be loved.  I can stand at the front of a classroom for hours and attempt to drill information into a child's brain, but if I do so without showing love to that kid or displaying that I am truly interested in his/her development as an individual, I am not only doing a severe disservice to that child, but I am simply wasting my time.  Why? Because I have neglected the emotional precondition that exists within us all and that we all desperately yearn to possess.  

I taught a student last year by the name of Michael.  He struggled with anger.  He told me stories of teachers and adults yelling at him for laziness, unresponsiveness, and lack of work ethic.  At first, I was frustrated with him because it was true, he didn't work; he simply sat there and stared.  If I said anything to him, he just looked at me and refused to say anything.  It didn't matter if I had the most interesting lesson in the world; he was uninterested.  One day, exhausted by my past/failed efforts,  I sat down with him, got to know him, asked him questions, and encouraged him in small ways.  Within days, Michael was completing all of his work, smiling, showing up on time, and earning one of the highest grades in the class.  This had nothing to do with my ability to speak or talk to Michael differently, but everything to do with Jesus' tug on my heart, reminding me of the importance of love.  Without the heart of Christ, there would have been no energy/ability within my own body to have any sort of desire to encourage this kid.  If it was up to me, I would have let the kid sit there all year; it was too exhausting.  There is power in the name of Jesus, that's for sure. 

My hope and prayer is that this book will continue to guide me and reveal to me the ways in which I do need to take emotion into account, especially in the vulnerable place of a school building and on a houseboat. I am excited to see the ways in which Jesus changes the ways I have encountered emotions in the past in order to simply follow the Greatest Commandment to a greater degree.