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Hebrews 12:3
Common English Bible
3 Think about the one who endured such opposition from sinners so
that you won’t be discouraged and you won’t give up.
It was not in my job description, which was to teach science
and mathematics. Yet, the maintenance of the entire school plant, including
teacher’s homes, fell on my shoulders. I was working upwards of 12 hours a day,
6 days a week. Believe it or not, I thrived under the regimen. I still found
some time to read and to chat with my wife. Without a vehicle of any kind, we
were stuck on the mission, so this brought no variation to my activities.
One year under a new principal, however, things came to a
head. He liked to micromanage everything. He would ask me to do something. I
would get my workers (students) working on the project and then go and do other
pressing things. On occasion he would visit the project while I was away and
demand that the workers do something different. When I returned to check on
progress, I would find them tearing down what they had done. Stunned, I asked
why. They would look a bit confused and then tell me the principal had told
them to. When I spoke to him, he would say simply, “I want it done a different
way.”
When I disciplined a student in my class, he sometimes
reversed the discipline but never told me. Then in front of the class, the
student would inform me that the principal had told him that what he was doing
was okay. This, of course, had a serious effect on the decorum of the class.
Then one of my student helpers forgot to add more oil into a
diesel engine, that powered our water pump, I was in charge of. The lack of oil severely damaged the
crankshaft of the engine. The cost of a replacement crankshaft cost more than
half the replacement of the entire engine. I reported our problem to the
principal. He showed up the next day with a mechanic he had hired from town. He
introduced him to me: “Now here is a real mechanic. You go down and see how he
fixes it!”
“Good!” I said, “But no real mechanic wants an amateur
looking over his shoulder.” I didn’t remind him that fixing things was not part
of my job description and that I was doing this merely to save the school a lot
of money. The “real” mechanic put some shims in the bearings and ran the
engine. It died within eight hours. Then he told the principal, “The only way
to fix the engine is a new crankshaft or a new engine. The principal was
careful to never mention the event to me again. We parted as friends.
I guess I was discouraged. I gave up and turned in my letter
of resignation. This scared the principal. He came to me personally and begged
me to stay the two more months to the end of the school term. Then a new
principal would take over, and he was going to another job.
Because I was working so much, I had not kept my eyes on the
One who had suffered continual opposition and died on account of it. I did not
give up but stayed on for a couple more years, until my tour of duty was over.
That year was merely preparation for my final year when the opposition came not
from the administration but from other directions. That time I was prepared and
kept my eyes on Jesus Christ and finished in triumph.
In this current age when a raging pandemic threatens to
destroy our lives and an enemy threatens to destroy our democracy, Lord, we
rest our future in Your capable, loving hands!
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