Living to Teach Rather Than Teaching to Live

As I have been pondering the possibility of returning to teach at Handong University in Korea, I have been revisiting the Analects of Confucius.  One in particular is especially applicable to anyone who senses that the calling upon their life is a call to teach.

Of his own role as a teacher, Confucius said, "For anyone who brings even the smallest token of appreciation, I have yet to refuse instruction."


This responsibility to the one seeking instruction was again impressed upon me when I read this morning these verses in The Wisdom of Solomon: "The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction, and concern for instruction is love of her."  So when one is met with a request from those who are sincerely seeking instruction, the one who has a call to teach must give the most deliberate consideration to responding.


This type of thinking challenges me to confront the question:  Do you teach to live or do you live to teach?  Another way to put the question would be to examine whether I am accept the offer to teach primarily and principally as a means to make a living, or do I view the opportunity to teach as an open door through which God is directing me to proceed in faith depending upon him and him alone to provide for my earthly needs?


Am I taking no thought for tomorrow, anxious over what I will eat or where I will live or how I will be clothed?  Am I willing to follow on trusting the one who is my Guide, not only to make the way clear, but also to provide all that will be needed for me to progress along that way?  Here Bonhoeffer instructs: "The only way to win assurance is by leaving to-morrow entirely in the hands of God and by receiving from him all we need for to-day" (Discipleship, 178).

  

"Watch and Pray"

I find myself in a time of waiting.  As I ponder the options that are before me, I continue to wait on the responses of others to clarify what opportunities are presently open to me.  While prayer is always essential to the one who seeks to follow Christ, I'm realizing even more how necessary it is during these times of waiting.

Bonhoeffer's comments on the petition "Thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth" are particularly poignant as I seek to practice living a submitted, singular and sacrificed life.  He writes:  "In fellowship with Jesus his followers have surrendered their own wills completely to God's, and so they pray that God's will may be done throughout the world.  No creature on earth shall defy him.  But the evil will is still alive even in the followers of Christ, it still seeks to cut them off from fellowship with him; and that is why they must also pray that the will of God may prevail more and more in their hearts every day and break down all defiance" (Discipleship 166).

Psalm 40 echoes this theme -- "my delight is to do your will, O Lord!" -- and so may my heart and mind!  Show me your way, O Lord; lead me in the path you have set out ahead of me.  Again, Bonhoeffer speaks to the heart of the matter:  "It is always true of the disciple that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and he must therefore "watch and pray" (Discipleship 170).

Practicing Mindfulness

A few weeks ago I learned that a teaching opportunity that I had been told would be opening for me here in the next academic year will, in fact, not be opening.  The door to that opportunity seems to be closing or is actually completely closed now.  I had been planning on that position, but now it appears that I have a much greater need to practice daily mindfulness rather than living so much for an imagined future whose fulfillment was and is completely out of my hands.

In the midst of this time of searching for guidance and reflection upon my calling to teach, I have started to read Thich Nhat Hanh's little book, The Miracle of Mindfulness.  Thich Nhat Hanh had a substantial impact upon Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the movement for peace in Vietnam during the 1960's.

I was first introduced to the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh by my good friend and colleague, John Han, when I served with him on the faculty of Missouri Baptist University.  As I have read, I have been challenged by Hanh's insights in to living a whole life.  In this little book, he writes: "Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves. . . it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life" (21).

Thich Nhat Hanh's instruction on the practice of mindfulness echoes the theme of "single-mindedness" that pervades the New Testament.  More than merely a self-discipline, single-mindedness is very much a gift of the Holy Spirit as he is at work forming within each follower of Jesus the mind of Christ.  Paul exhorts the disciple of Christ to do whatever your hand finds to do heartily as unto to the Lord (Colossians 3:23) and to do all things to the glory of God.  This is practicing mindfulness.

May I be living more wholly in the fullness of my present calling today that I may know and practice such mindfulness in each moment that is granted to me.