Surely Not Every Good Cause!

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Galatians 6:9 Good News Translation

⁹ So let us not become tired of doing good; for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest.

 

The last blog I posted used the text 2 Corinthians 8:9 “And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause.”

My brother responded with “I'm afraid that every good cause would easily bankrupt me.”

To which I concurred: “I couldn't help thinking that, when I read this verse and thought about its ramifications!”

Practically every day my mail brings me a request for handout for some good (and not so good) cause. My email, my phone, my pastor, my social media connections, my politicians, the pan handler on the street corner, all stand there with a hand stretched out for my help.

In this age others often appear to expect that we are infinite. When I first started teaching, there was one method of getting a message to me, other than in person—in my mail. Even at that time, much of it was junk mail. During my tenure as a teacher, I got a desk phone, then a phone answering machine. Then along came email, text messaging, electronic calendars, a mobile phone, and the list grew. I was told by a host of messaging agents—some people, some simply robotic machines—that they had left me a message, hadn’t I seen it?!

At this point, as mathematicians say, I need to exercise the axiom of choice. To abuse Set Theory, where there is an unlimited number of choices, I can always make a choice. It is up to me to decide which choice I wish to make.

When Paul wrote Galatians 6:9 he must have been thinking about the number of “good causes” that present themselves to a Christian every day. He encourages us to not become weary in well doing. Even though I have an infinite God with me, He knows that I am not infinite—He didn’t make me infinite, and He doesn’t expect me to be infinite. But He assures me that if I don’t give up, there is a reward awaiting me.

Now, think of God continually receiving requests, often contradictory, from the entire universe!

Whew, Lord! You assure us that You don’t get weary and are infinitely able to easily handle all our requests. Thank You!

 

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[1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-nJv0EQrLbM/maxresdefault.jpg

Reap Without Burn Out

 

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Galatians 6:9 

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

 

After five years teaching high school in Africa and giving higher mathematics no mind, I gained permission to work on a doctorate in mathematics—something I had made as a personal goal. I got told in no uncertain terms that I didn’t need a doctorate in mathematics to work as a missionary. The university accepted me and told me they would give me a financial assistantship if I passed two of the three required qualifying examinations in September. That was at the end of May after only one semester back in graduate school. Night and day, I set myself to master the material that I could expect on these comprehensive examinations. It seemed like an impossible task. Yet I took copies of the previous qualifying exams over the last 10 years and methodically started doing each one. I worked backward from the most recent.

Sylvia insisted we needed to spend several weeks with her parents in Michigan. Her dad provided me a room in one of his churches where I could study uninterrupted. I knew I was making progress, but I grew exceedingly weary from the intense effort. I did not let the weary feeling slow me down or turn me from my purpose. I passed the two qualifiers I attempted.

The relief was short lived as I started teaching half time, taking graduate classes full time, being a father of a three-year-old daughter, being husband of a wife who was expecting a second child in October, and preparing for the third qualifier, which was coming up the next May.

Sylvia gave birth to a bonnie lass after a really scary complication and the resulting Caesarian-section. I felt the least prepared for the third qualifier and consequently gave it even more preparation, which paid off by the active help of the Lord. We had a marvelous second summer as we all reaped the results of a successful year.

Thank you, Lord, for seeing to it that in due time we do reap what we have toiled so diligently for.

  

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[1] https://bitesizebio.com/3437/10-tips-for-mastering-your-qualifying-exam/

Older but not Discouraged

 

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2 Corinthians 4:16 

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹⁶ For this reason we never become discouraged. Even though our physical being is gradually decaying, yet our spiritual being is renewed day after day.

 

When I was in my thirties and forties, I would look in the mirror and say to myself, “You don’t look like you’ve aged at all.” Being a teacher, my students wouldn’t let me get away with that for even a second. One look at me told them I was way out of their league, and they had subtle and not so subtle ways of letting me know it, too. Now, at twice that age, I look in the mirror and wonder who that old guy with sparse white hair is who is looking back at me.

A couple years ago I bumped into a fellow math teacher from another university. I asked him how he was. He smiled and said, “Great! I’m retired and loving it.”

“Why did you retire?” I quizzed.

“When I saw that it was literally taking me twice as long to take care of the paperwork on my desk than it used to, I decided it was time to retire.” He said this in all seriousness.

“I understand all too well,” I empathized.

As I look back at my teaching methods early on, I sometimes shudder. I treated my students the same way my teachers had treated me. I’m aware that I sometimes was too harsh on them. I like to think that I became a more caring person as I matured. Indeed my spiritual being was being renewed on a gradual day after day basis.

Thank You, Almighty Father, that you haven’t given up on me, or anyone else, but still work with us daily.

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[i] https://www.aging.com/the-way-of-living-being-happy-and-healthy-at-an-old-age/

Think Love, Joy, Hope, and Beauty

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Philippians 4:8 

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁸ In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable.

Shortly after I began teaching at La Sierra University, Hilmer Besel came into my office. He was very worried. His wife Lily was in hospital and I knew things were not going well for her. She was naturally very short and her osteoporosis had stolen another 6 inches from her height. Besides that about everything else in her body seemed to have given up. They had her lying in bed with tubes protruding out of almost every orifice. She couldn’t speak, drink, or eat. Everything hurt and she was miserable. She wrote a little note to her beloved husband and requested that they remove all the tubes and let her die in peace. Hilmer asked me what I would do if my wife had made that request.

Lily was a lovely woman. She was always interested in the welfare of those about her. She was a pleasure to talk to. We all hated to see her go. But who would keep such a lovely person alive in such unbearable torture? Hilmer gathered their three daughters around her and prayed with her and then they pulled all of the tubes out of her body and quit giving the life preserving drugs. The doctors told the family that she would be dead in twenty minutes.

Four days later she walked out of the hospital, delighted to be free from most of those pains. She regarded the next four years as a gift from God. When I would see her she was always interested in my well being and expressed no complaints. She had not been miraculously cured and her ailments finally took her about four years later. I remember visiting her again just before she died. She knew her time was short and she expressed her concern for Hilmer. Would I look after him especially when he needed something? I promised her I would.

Hilmer had founded the mathematics and computer science departments at La Sierra University. He ate lunches at the university cafeteria, so he would come by my office almost every day. He spent his time studying scripture, working on an elementary proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, or finishing his copper roof. He would report on progress and often seek my help in one or another of his current projects. Like his wife, he never dwelt on the failings of his fellow humans. He lived a lonely life, but never complained. At his lunch meals, students and faculty would often spend time with him learning from his wisdom. He outlived Lily by almost twenty years.

Thank You Lord for people who love to redirect our thoughts to joys, beauties, and topics beyond our meager existence.

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[1] Hilmer Besel at a Departmental Christmas Party in 2012

Sharing Good News

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Mark 16:15 

Tree of Life Version (TLV)

¹⁵ He told them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to every creature.

Saint Francis of Assisi is often depicted as taking this great commission in Mark literally when he preached the gospel to the birds and other creatures. Most of Christendom has considered the commission as meaning take the gospel to every human of every race, gender, language, status, and locality. Most Christians, however, have not necessarily considered the commission as applying to them personally.

The Adventist church has a huge worldwide educational system. One of its goals is to bring the gospel to its students. Every once in a while, we as teachers in the system were encouraged to bring the gospel to our students—to make the gospel an integral part of the class content. I puzzled some and laughed a little about bringing religion into factoring a polynomial or integrating a trigonometric function. That was way beyond my creativity, and I was not willing to contrive artificial applications that would not bless anyone. At one point I did publish a paper suggesting how infinity is one aspect of God.[ii]

In my first teaching position, Ikizu Secondary School in Tanzania, teachers were expected to conduct a 10-minute worship during each day’s first class period. That period was actually 10 minutes longer than the other class periods. Since I always had a first period class, I became accustomed to reading a text and commenting on what this text said to me.

Later on, when I taught at the university level in the system, I found it fulfilling to take the first 5 minutes of any class to read a text and explain the significance I found in it. Some students criticized me for doing so; however, many students told me that they gained much when I did this. I also gained a personal blessing.

Lord, thank You for asking me to proclaim Your gospel in my world.

[i] https://www.eternitynews.com.au/world/catholics-commemorate-the-feast-of-st-francis-of-assisi/

[ii] http://www.institutechristianteaching.org/vol_01/vol_01.html see “The Finite, the Infinite, and God” pages 29-46 (1989)

Don't Be Afraid

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Isaiah 41:10 

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁰ Fear thou not; for I am with thee:

     be not dismayed; for I am thy God:

I will strengthen thee;

     yea, I will help thee;

          yea, I will uphold thee

with the right hand of my righteousness.

For my entire career I had been teaching mathematics. Many students hated mathematics; they feared it and were dismayed that they had to take it in order to graduate. I used everything I could think of to try and break down that fear. Those who would actually do what I told them to do in class and for homework usually succeeded well. They didn’t always lose their hatred for the subject, but at least they gained an assurance that they could do it. It gave them a feeling of empowerment that bolstered them for the rest of their college life.

Success comes from doing, not wishing for or dreaming about it, but from sitting down and actually sweating through the details until they began to see why it worked for them. Naturally there were some who expected—even demanded—that I do the work for them and give them a grade representative of what I could do. I would hold review sessions before major tests and exams. I would give daily quizzes that were aimed at making them acquainted with the kinds of questions I would later put on tests. I often handed out copies of previous exams I had given in that topic so they could work through them. I encouraged them to use these to simulate their exam experience. This was to help them to relieve their own stress during the in-class tests. I knew it had worked for me and that many students told me it had worked well for them, too.

I always explained to each class that when God promised wisdom to us—see James 1:5—there were no conditions attached to that promise. God would always give them wisdom. We would always pray for wisdom before each test.

Early on in teaching I discovered that each class had its own “personality.” A few classes stonewalled themselves behind an attitude of resisting everything I did for them. They refused to do homework or prepare for tests. They tried to demand that I give them a passing grade simply because they came to class regularly. One time six students, each bigger than I, marched into my office furious that the test I gave was not an exact copy of a previous test that I had given them for review. When I pointed out that, of course, the answers weren’t the same because the questions were similar but not identical, they vowed revenge. The next morning when I went out to my car to go to class, I found that the windshield had been smashed by a violent blow with a baseball bat. I told my class what had happened and explained that I was apparently doing too much for them. In the future they should look at their textbook for examples for tests and prepare for them in that way. Fortunately, I’ve had no more bat impressions in my windshield.

Thank You, Lord, for living up to Your promise to strengthen, help and uphold us, and for the fact that You really do that.

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[i] https://carbuzz.com/news/smashing-your-ferrari-s-windshield-with-a-baseball-bat-is-labor-day-fun

Sharpen Ones Countenance

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Proverbs 27:17 

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁷ Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

In high school I earned a distinction in mathematics when compared with the other math students in the Transvaal Province ofl South Africa.  In college I earend a bachelors degree in mathematics. Then I went on to the University of Iowa for graduate studies in mathematics.

Dr Tom Price walked into my first topology class. There were about twenty of us students in the class. He handed  out those old purple mimeographed sheets of paper. The first page had a list of definitions of terms we would use in the class. Open set, closed set, continuous function. Then a list of the statements of theorems followed.

“When you come to class next time, write down the number of each theorem you can prove. I will get you to write down the proof of a theorem for a theorem you have proved on the black board. We as a class will comment on your proof.  See you Wednesday!” and Dr Price walked out the door.

No sweat, I had been proving theorems ever since high school geometry and trigonometry. I came to class the next time having proved several of his theorems. He had me stand up in front of the class—I really hated that at the best of times—and prove a theorem. I started proving that theorem and my fellow students pounced on me like a bunch of piranha fish. They viscously tore apart everything I wrote . I sat back down in my seat and tried to hide my embarrassment and shame. I noticed that they did that to every student who presented a proof.

As the semester wore slowly by, I learned to present a proof that no one would pounce on. I developed a confidence out of that experience that I could prove anything you handed me and no one could find anything to criticize in my logic or presentation. The other students became my friends. I went on to do my mathematical research in algebraic topology, a branch of mathematics that many mathematicians regard as the hardest math field. Why? Because that class had taught me that there was no proof too hard for me in topology.

Thank You Lord  for “friends” who sharpen my countenance.

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[i] https://blc.edu/academics/courses/subjects/mathematics-courses/

Encourage One Another

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1 Thessalonians 5:11 

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.

Once upon a time I was asked to visit high schools loosely affiliated with the university where I was teaching. I visited them and chatted with the teachers of mathematics there. I asked what they were doing and what training they had for the teaching of mathematics. I found that most of the teachers had no real training in mathematics and wished they did. They all indicated that if we had a master’s degree for teaching mathematics, they would come and take it. Their schools had a program that paid for them to take further studies in their fields each summer if they wished to do it.

I presented this request to my department. There was a favorable reception to the idea, and I was encouraged to look into the matter further. I got in touch with the Mathematics Association that was connected with college math teaching and preparation of mathematics teachers. They had a program that looked really exciting, and I spent hours adapting it to what we did at the university.

When I presented this as a possibility to the department, everybody seemed to be opposed to the very idea. I was accused of being non-professional, of undercutting what the university was doing, of causing everyone in the department to have to do more work, of working against the university’s policy of excellence. I received no encouragement whatsoever. The attacks turned personal. Finally, after months of discouragement, I dropped the whole idea.  

Apparently Paul felt this way in Thessalonica. He was chased out of the city by disgruntled people. Later he wrote a short letter to the church there. Eight times in this letter he mentioned encouragement (in the Holman Christian Standard Bible); that is more than in any two of his other letters.

Lord, use me to encourage those I associate with in their walk with You.

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[i] https://relentlessgrowth.wordpress.com/2017/07/07/encourage/