Conflicting Reports

Job 33:14

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴ For God does speak—now one way, now another—
    though no one perceives it.

Have you looked up your name on Google? You probably have. We all have an innate curiosity to know what is being recorded about ourselves. I was proctoring a test one Friday and happened to have my laptop with me. I looked up a teacher’s name that some student had been inquiring about. Then I looked up mine. I hadn’t looked it up in at least a year, and I remembered none of the entries. Down towards the bottom of the first page was a commercial site for students. Its primary purpose is to sell stuff students might be looking for. It also has a part for students to rate their professors. It was to this page that Google took me.

I had been teaching evening classes at a local community college, and there were three entries. The students rated me a 4.5 out of 5. I couldn’t have paid them to write nicer things about me. The only mildly negative comment was that the class I was teaching went way too fast. Indeed it did: we covered pre-calculus in 8 weeks. This is normally covered in 16 weeks at that college. I had to drive both myself and them relentlessly. Yet the students continued that I was always interested in their well-being. I would never get impatient when they asked questions. I was always interesting to listen to and even found time to tell humorous personal experiences just to lighten the extreme pressure we were operating under.

That evening I mentioned this to my son Fred. He pulled out his smart phone and looked it up. He found the corresponding site for the school I taught at during the day. It had only one entry about me, and that student rated me a 1.5 out of 5. The writer went on to contradict everything the three students at the other school said about me. I doubt that my detractor even knew of the existence of the other three commentators.

God speaks to each of us, sometimes through inane things like Google. He often speaks different things to us; some we delight to hear; others really put us in our place.

Thank You, Lord, for encouraging us and keeping us humble. Thank You for guiding us step by step in the various directions You want us to go.