These cute little mosaics cover the columns out in front of Andy’s school. There are butterflies, there flowers, there is Pikachu.
And there is the Big Bang.
You’ve heard it before and so have I. We’ve said it loads of times, I’m sure.
And it’s important. Because it only precedes the challenging, the difficult, the weighty, and usually, the impossible.
“I don’t know how to start”.
And who cares so much about where you start anyway? Doesn’t where you finish matter more than anything?
But the thing is… we humans want to do things well. We want to achieve things and affect things and matter and not to have merely existed. We care about where we start because we want to finish well. The way in which we finish matters just as much as where we finish. And if we get off to a bad start?
We’re staring down a new school year, and I’ve been remembering what the beginning of the last one was like. I’d felt strongly that instead of manhandling my way through Andy’s class options, I should ask God to place Andy with the teacher He wanted him to have and then trust Him. (This is not to say that carefully considering where your child should be is equivalent to a lack of trust in the Lord. I’m just saying that my m.o. with life in general is not careful consideration…. It’s manhandling.)
Well, wouldn’t you know it… Andy was placed with a teacher that I had been worried he’d get. Anytime I’d ever seen her, she seemed to be yelling. She even yelled at Andy once when I’d had him standing outside the restroom. I was worried that we were getting off to a bad start.
The year wore on, and I began to learn a lot of things about this teacher I’d been ready to write off.
Yeah, Mrs. P. yells. When she’s happy, excited, storytelling, or just plain chatting. It’s what many New Yorkers do. I didn’t know that. She’s also quite passionate about her work. She never had children of her own, so she thinks of each child as being temporarily ‘hers’. She sees her time with them as a gift… an opportunity to pour into them and help each one be his very best. Didn’t know that either.
Didn’t know she was a believer.
Didn’t know that when Andy had to face his first public schooling vs Christian faith clash, she’d be the one to show him how to start navigating those waters.
The class had to watch a video depicting various tenets of evolution. There are numerous opinions on both sides of this issue, and I don’t have it all figured out, to say the least. So, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll just say that Andy felt the content of the video contradicted Biblical truth. And he was upset. Couldn’t believe he was being made to watch it.
“This isn’t true”, he kept telling his friends. His eyes even teared up.
Mrs. P. took him out in the hallway.
With subjects like creation and evolution, it’s hard for me to know ‘how to start’ even sorting through it all. Young earth, new earth, moon dust, sediment layers, DNA mutations, fossils and record gaps, natural selection…..I don’t know what to think half the time, let alone what to tell a child.
But Mrs. P. knew. She knew exactly how to start…
“Listen,” she said, “I have a lot of questions about all of this too. I don’t have all the answers I’d like, and maybe someday I will. But the only thing I know for sure, Andy, is that God has written my name on the palms of His hands, and I’m His. Its ok if I don’t have everything else figured out. This is what matters most. Do ya get it?”
He got it.
How do you start? You start at the beginning...
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overpower it.” -John 1:1-5
You start with the Word that is God and with God. The Word – “logos” – that reveals God’s mind, reason, and wisdom. The Word that embodies God’s total message of love, grace, and redemption. And if this Word is alive and brings life and light that darkness CANNOT overpower?
Maybe you and I can take a step into this next chapter, unafraid.
Because you and I are beginning something, aren’t we? And it might be an exciting something. And it might be a difficult something. And it might be a frightening something.
And we don’t have to begin alone.
The new job… the empty nest… the prison sentence… the deployment… the newlywed… the medical treatment… the baby… the crazy idea… the move… the new school year… the new day…
“I don’t know how to start”.
Because it is, by definition, all unknown. The future, that is. I can’t control or tame it. I can’t even know it so as to prepare for it.
It causes some anxiety, does it not? (Insert nervous laughter at this bold understatement).
But He is already there. The Word. The Truth. The Life.
The WAY.
Can I begin this thing, this season, this day, the way Mrs. P. does… allowing the unseen to dictate my interpretation of the seen?
I’ve heard of a process called ‘grounding’, by which a person on the verge of a panic attack can bring themselves back to reality and to a state of relative calm. The process involves listing things you can see, touch, taste, and hear. The purposeful placement of attention on things that are real helps keep the person’s mind from spiraling downward in a whirlwind of anxiety.
And sometimes? No. Daily. Hourly? We need some spiritual grounding. I need to sit down and point to some things that are real, regardless of what my emotions are doing at the moment.
“In the beginning was the Word….”. That’s right. Jesus has always existed. He knew this day would come before the foundation of the world.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. – Oh yeah… He really did come to Earth. He knows what it’s like down here. And He sympathizes with my humanity.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life”. – Sigh. Right. The GOD of the universe loves me and sent His Son to die in my place. He’s prepared a place for me with Him.
“The LORD is my shepherd…” – Oh, ok… so… I don’t have to know exactly what’s up ahead? And you know the way?
“I AM the way…” Huh… I’ll just follow you, then? Whew.
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”. - Really? But what if I…
“Never.” – What if they…
“Never.” – I’m going to mess it up, though. I just know it.
“Neither death not life nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, neither anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - OH! So like…NOTHING nothing. Not even my mistakes. Not even public school. Not even….
“Nothing.” – Got it.
Breathe relief with me for a second? These things don’t change. EVER.
Will you search out some spiritual “grounding” verses today? Because we need to start today right; and when it all falls apart, we’ll need to start it over again. And we need to start at the beginning, with the Word, who gives us the only accurate interpretation of reality, along with hope to finish well… no matter how we’ve messed up.
Those columns…. if they were covered in the Word instead of words like “Big Bang”…. If the public school system was upheld by the unchanging Word instead of man’s fickle theories….I sure would feel a lot better about sending Andy in there morning after morning. I’d feel as if this were a place God could really use for the spread of His kingdom. And I’d probably be right; but I am wrong to think He can’t use this one…. That the darkness might somehow overcome the Light.
How is it that within the halls of public school, my son learned to begin with the Word? To let the Word define reality for him before all else? To be rooted in and defined not by worldly knowledge, but by the Father’s love? You might say it this way:
“And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” – Romans 8:28
In your marriage, in your job, at your school, in your home… God works for your good, believer. And He has a purpose for your being right there. Nothing is wasted and you can’t trip Him up and He won’t lose you in the big bad world out there.
He is near. Call to Him today and ask Him to stop the spinning whirlwind and ground you in the truth. Begin again and again today if necessary… and each time, start at the beginning…. where the Word was and is and forever will be the same…..
Yesterday,
Today,
Tomorrow.
