on insights

i'm feeling super bloggerific today, and it's the first moment of 2011 in which i feel like i am compelled to say something worth saying, so i'm super excited. granted, the title of today's entry is kind of uninteresting and cliche, but actually, it's something that i'm starting to feel quite strongly about.

today i incidentally had lunch with my students. usually that gets to be a pretty routine practice, with the girls chatting amongst themselves about whatever it is interests them these days, and pretty much forgetting that i'm even sitting there at all. but today, i was bombarded by the most intriguing questions from one of my form 2 students. well, the thing about being a teacher is, you pretty much have to be well-equipped with model answers at every instant, because you don't want to give an answer that wrecks your image as a "teacher". so you can imagine what kind of interesting things i had to say when my student asked me, "what should you do when you've treated someone very very well and in the end you've been betrayed and you find out that they've hated you all along?"

well, let's see. the first thing i wanted to say on impulse was, "oh, i get that all the time. fuck them." of course, that can't come out in a way that can be justified, so i had to cleverly rephrase. and what's the best way to come up with universally-accepted model answers for ethical dilemmas? pin it down on Jesus. and that's exactly what i did. i told her matter-of-factly that in life, you can never get everyone to like you (sounds cliche enough), and that no matter what you do, there will always be some people who won't approve of who you are or what you do. take me for example. i know for a fact that i always give 110% in all my teaching and give all of my love and care and attention to my ever-so-demanding students. but are there students who hate me? yes! are there students who think i suck? of course! does that bother me? MORE THAN YOU WOULD KNOW. BUT, under Christianity, we know that it doesn't matter.

and i'm not going to say it doesn't matter because Jesus loves us and that's all that matters. I'm not going to say that we're all going to die and go to heaven anyway so it doesn't matter. i'm not even going to say that we should judge ourselves before judging others so it doesn't matter. what i'm going to say is, we were never meant to do something strictly for the rewards, anyway.

i've blogged about this before, so for those (two) of you who are loyal readers, this is no revelation. but for me, it actually is. i explained to my students that we don't do things to plan for the kind of rewards we expect to receive, because the rewards God plans to give us by far exceed any type of rewards we could possibly imagine. i don't mean those in heaven and the gift of eternal life. granted, that's the biggest reward you could ever ask for. but let's be honest, who's really thinking about that when you want your boss to give you your well-deserved recognition or you want your friend to call you back or you want your boyfriend to understand your feelings when you're fighting? no one. what we're thinking about is, "why are people like this? why don't i get what i deserve? why do i keep putting everything i have, every part of me, being the best i can be, only to be treated unfairly in return? why??"

and the answer? because when you do the right things, no matter what the consequences are, you will get your rewards through other means. that is the rock of our faith. not that i will get what i want when i follow God's instructions, but that i will get what i need. how am i supposed to get the rewards i ask for when i don't even know what kind of rewards i could have? it's like asking for an iphone that hasn't been invented yet. but that is the enormous amount of faith that God is asking us to have. trust me, and I will bless you in other ways. trust me, and you will see the rewards you weren't expecting to receive. and we all know the best presents are the ones we receive by surprise, without anticipation or expectations.

i don't know whether you feel like this is an insight, or whether this has inspired you in any way. but it has inspired me. explaining this concept to my students made me realize how ridiculously blessed i've been in other areas of my life. so that while i may not have received anything i was asking for, i have reaped much more than i've sown. i bow my head in shame and humility that i've completely missed the things that God has given me with so generously.

thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything.