For the Love of ____

How would you fill in the blank? For the love of _____: Pete? Money? People? God? I had to learn the correct answer this week.

"Please write your expectations and what you want to learn in this English class," I told my students.

After class, I glanced at their answers and felt guilt creeping into my cheeks. How could I miss the most important thing?! Several of them made comments about learning to pray, listening to sermons, or better understanding Scripture. To my chagrin, I had focused solely on the English material I had been given without a thought for how to keep God at the center of it all. I hadn't even prayed at the beginning of the lesson.

I revamped things for the following week: Start class with a memory verse in English. Pray in English. Play a worship song in English to improve their listening skills. I'm expected to teach the students English, but I'm teaching at a seminary for crying out loud, I can't leave God out of it.

The second class went much better this week. My biggest challenge is going to be balancing things between the beginners and the more advanced students. But the lesson wasn't over yet.

"I'm only teaching out of love for the seminary," I told Evelyn yesterday. "It's not my strong suit. It's not what I really want to be doing, but they're desperate for teachers this semester. Students are required to take English in order to graduate and there's no one else to teach it."

God used a fiction book to point out the error of my comment. I thought it would be fun, light reading. A successful pastor's son gets called to his own church. His ministry starts off small but quickly grows. He starts making compromises to draw more people in. He keeps telling his wife "look how God is blessing the ministry!" but she has misgivings about his methods. He seems to put the love of people's approval higher than his love of the Lord.

Rachel, what about you? The still, small voice said.

My comment to Evelyn resurfaced. Only teaching out of love for the seminary? Shouldn't I be teaching for the love of God first and foremost and then out of love for the students? Hopefully I've learned my lesson.