I used to post graphs of my student's reading progress in the hall to show that they had made remarkable growth. All the while I was being criticized for teaching reading improperly. It was a terrible year for me and it almost pushed me out of the education world completely. (Teaching is a terrible profession in many ways, but that will be the topic of another blog post). I look back at my professional career and find the most stressful and uncomfortable times have occurred when I was closest to God.
I expect that any one who is responding to God's command will run across a conflict with "the world". It is baffling. It is extremely uncomfortable. It is something we must go through, because it is not a conflict we can resolve.
18-19"If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you. (John 15:18, The Message)
I know for sure that I have been in that wonderful state that I knew the world hated me because I was living on God's terms. But I confess that wonderful as that state of being is, I still do so much to avoid it. Because when someone does me wrong, it's not reasonable. It's not fair. It's not comfortable. It's not a problem we can solve. Reasonableness, fairness, comfort, problem solving - these are worldly things that are attractive to me. Living in God's terms involves service, humility, ... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness.
My prayer to God is that I can come to accept the world's hatred with joy.
