HEARTLIGHT®: Two Minute Meditations: "Just Doing My Job"


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tudents have described you as a hero, helping them and other students get out of the school alive.”

She was obviously taken aback, but gathered herself and said something like: “No. No I’m not a hero. I was just doing what thousands of teachers do everyday, I was just trying to help my students.”

For many of us in the United States, May is the month schools finish their year and wind down until it all begins again in August. Students are busy preparing for finals, graduation, and summer vacation. Teachers are grading tests, checking in text books, planning their summer training seminars, and looking forward to a short break. Many are also busy lining up summer jobs to supplement their income.

We occasionally hear about bad teachers or things that go wrong in the classroom or what has gone wrong in education. In the process, teachers, the frontline workers in education, are rarely thanked or appreciated for their contribution. This despite the increasing demands on today on our public educators! Increasingly our public school teachers have to do the work of...

To add insult to injury, teachers are often portrayed as out of touch, incompetent, or cruel in much of the media.

They want to be light in a world of darkness.

I want to challenge you to reverse this lack of thanks for teachers, especially Christian teachers, in your own life and the life of your church. At the risk of oversimplification, let’s say that Christian teachers come in two packages.

One group walks the tightrope of living out their faith in ministry through the public schools, always careful to not step over the legal line of inappropriately discussing their faith while seeking to always honor Christ in their work and lifestyle. They pray for their students, wanting to display the character of Christ, hoping to somehow make a difference in the lives of their students and the confusing world of public education. They want to be light in a world of darkness, sometimes facing the hostility of other teachers and administrators because of their faith. I shudder to think where we would be without them in public education.

The other group of Christian teachers can be found in our Christian schools. They do often do their job without as many aides, with fewer resources, and on less salary. They also view their job as a ministry. They pray for their students and speak openly about matters of faith, trying to influence their students to follow the Lord. The offer a quality alternative to public education in an environment where they can openly talk about faith and Scripture.

Whichever direction the teacher chooses, the Christian community needs to provide prayer support and appreciation to them for their work. Unlikely to get it from any other source, we can and must find ways to honor them, publicly thank them, and show them our appreciation and respect.

The anonymous teacher who helped lead her students to safety during the horrors at Columbine High School was correct: most teachers do spend their days trying to guide their students to safety and give them the resources they need to negotiate life successfully. But if this is true of most teachers in general, it is most certainly true for teachers who wear the name of Christ. Let’s not forget to thank our Christian teachers for their ministry!