Be a people of the Word

By Caroline

Light of the World by William Holman
Hunt (Wikimedia Commons).

I’m on a short three-week break in between classes so I’ve had some time to catch up on news and things around the cultural landscape… Sometimes, I wonder why I bother. What an assault on the senses, what a challenge for anyone in this modern day to continue on the path of living in the world, but not being of it. It’s difficult seeking a life where one is,

like sheep among the wolves…as cunning as serpents and yet as harmless as doves.

—Matthew 10:16

Quite an exercise in discernment and yet, if I don’t do it, my class of 6th graders tell me about it nonetheless and then some; at least this way I’m prepared.

When they do tell me, they expect me to react as the world does, in anger and bitterness. They expect me to give in to the inevitability that, whatever I may teach them about God’s ways, it just isn’t going to cut it in the world where they’re growing up .

And the children are really in survival mode. The stories I hear about what goes on daily in school, it’s heartbreaking. But, bless their hearts they carry on and they have the energy to because they’re young.

 Who can overcome the world?

—1 John 5:5

 Continue reading at Caroline's blog Bell of the Wanderer.