Grateful — Learning to Rule My Spirit in the Classroom
I’ve been participating in a 26-day writing challenge, and today’s prompt was deceptively simple: Write about something ordinary you’re thankful for. What emerged was a reflection on my very ordinary, weekly English class for Chinese university students and their spouses — and an unexpected reminder, through God’s work in my students, of how closely gratitude, repentance, and self-control are intertwined.
Today it is so easy to be grateful. I have received so much encouragement in the Lord the past couple of days, starting with my English class last night. I arrived not feeling grateful, and quite out of sorts. I had trouble finding a place to park and ended up in a paid lot that overcharges by a lot. I arrived on time, and as usual, had a grand total of one student. Rather than being grateful for the one, I was grumbling in my heart. Why did I even bother? It seemed no one could prioritize coming to the lesson on time. I even grumbled in my spirit, and I’ll bet she didn’t do her homework either.
Although, to be truthful, I didn’t expect anyone even to try. I’d posted the lesson at 9 pm on a Thursday night. They had less than 24 hours to do it.
Then someone (not in my class) started noting that things couldn’t be that bad here in the Holy Land. My response? “Oh yes, it’s the holy land, if you are looking for a lot of potholes!” Not a good start for the class.
We waited a few minutes, and when it looked like no one else would join, I turned to Jia, my single student, and suggested we pray to start the class, as usual. As I opened in prayer, I knew I had to repent, as publicly as I’d been grumping. I confessed my sin and my complaining spirit, thanked the Lord that Jia was in class, and asked Him to bless our time.
She looked at me in surprise after the prayer. “Debbie, I understand. Things get to all of us at times.”
I sighed, “You are right, but Jesus did not teach me to complain. I did not honor Him.”
She seemed to understand and nodded, and then straightened out a piece of paper in front of her. It had Chinese and English writing on it.
“Did you do your homework?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the tone of incredulity out of my voice. Seriously? The student who insisted she couldn’t learn had done her homework?
“Wow!” I exclaimed and asked her what verse she had picked.
Tonight’s assignment, I hoped, would be interesting for the students, easy with a little bit of challenge. They were under orders NOT to read Proverbs 25 in English. Instead, they were to read it in Chinese. Then they were to pick the verse they liked best and try to translate it into English using their current vocabulary—no English Bible to check against. They could use a dictionary, but that was it.
As Jia replied, “I picked verse 28”, Feng, another student, entered and took a seat.
“Wow, that is my favorite verse in the chapter. I picked that verse too!” he exclaimed.
So I asked Jia to share her translation, which was very well done.
“A man with no control over himself is like a city that has been conquered.”
Then I asked Feng to share his translation. It was similar, but had a slightly different emphasis.
“A city with no walls is like a man with no self-rule.”
As Feng read, two more students entered, Lee and Cindy. Lee heard what Feng said and interjected, “I picked that verse too!” Cindy, with her daughter on her lap, sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t have time.”
I smiled at her and told her it was ok. I understood — and I think I finally did. She desperately wanted to be in my classes. She enjoyed them, but homework, on top of her university studies, and being a mother and housewife, took a lot of time and energy.
I asked Lee to share his translation, which turned out to be quite similar to Feng’s. Before looking up the actual translation in some English Bibles, we discussed the different nuances conveyed by self-rule vs self-control. I’d never heard anyone teach about self-control as a self-rule, but the concept intrigued me.
Then we looked it up in Hebrew, and I worked everyone through the literal meaning of the passage in Biblical Hebrew:
A city broken into has no protection (walls) [like a] man without hindrance to his spirit.
Next, we looked up translations in the English Bible and discussed the nuances of each translation. This led to a deeper conversation about self-control, as well as a discussion of the word picture the proverb itself offers.
Lee asked an interesting question, “How did the city fall to begin with? What caused the walls to fall down?” I couldn’t answer that, but as we looked at the verse, he suggested, “It seems to me, that if the man’s problem is lack of control over his own spirit, the problem is from within. So I think the walls of the city fell because of something internal. Back then, walls didn’t just fall down, and there is no mention of an attack or an army.”
And I remembered how I had almost ruined the evening for myself by starting grumpy and negative. My students had done their work, but I knew that if I hadn’t repented, the class probably would have gone in a very different direction. How very important it is to be able to rule over our spirits.
We ended the discussion challenged to seek the Lord for life-changing self-control in every part of our lives. We all admitted it was impossible without Jesus, but we knew it was pleasing to Him; He would work it out in our lives.
God had yet another surprise for all of us. During the main meeting (after our class), the pastor was teaching on the 8 virtues in 2 Peter 1, one of which is self-control. Feng turned to me as the pastor spoke, “This is all exactly what we discussed in class!”
What a joy it is to serve the Lord. I’m so grateful to be teaching English using the Bible as a textbook. Sometimes, I think I learn more than my students do! Thank You, Lord, for starting my weekend with this encouragement.
