How to Walk Among Rows of Desks

I've been very challenged lately as to what it means for me, in a junior high classroom, to follow Jesus and to bring the Kingdom into an educational facility. While many of my collegues are trying methods of control - yelling, sarcasm - and want power over the students and respect from them, I am to follow down that road? Am I to go after power and order and respect and control by any means necessary or do I, because I claim to follow Jesus, have to have a totally different mindset altogether?

(Don't get me wrong - I am not making a critical statement toward the people I work with. Junior High kids can be a brutal bunch and in the midst of their hormones, I think teachers try to do the best they can. I am only saying that Jesus is challenging me...how I walk with him down the rows of desks.)

So what does it mean to reflect God's generous love despite the pressure I feel and the provocation from kids and parents? despite my own anger and frustration? NT Wright writes, "Impossible? Yes, at one level. But again, Jesus' teaching isn't just good advice, it's good news. Jesus did it all himself, and opened up the new way of being human so that all who follow him can discover it."

So Lord, give me perseverance to follow you. Give me eyes to discover. Let me not just admire this as a lovely piece of idealism and then go back to my normal ways. Let me see you - for you have already walked this road - and let me follow you down these rows of desks.