It was the end of the
school year, and my colleagues from Grade 4 were
briefing me on the students I would be receiving the
following year. “It’s a difficult class,” they said.
“Not at all like the great class you have now!”
I had to chuckle. They had
forgotten that just one year earlier they were
telling me about the class that they were now
calling “great”… And the word “great” hadn’t been in
their discourse! Rather, they had labeled my current
class as the worst in the school…
My mind drifted back to
the previous summer. I had known I would have over
30 students, and that most of them had already been
labeled “special needs”. I had known that I wouldn’t
be able to do my best with them without the help of
my Heavenly Father, and I had spent the summer
praying for my upcoming class.
As the school year began,
it had immediately been apparent that the Grade 4
teachers hadn’t been kidding. They were, indeed, the
“worst class in the school”! I continued to pray for
them. I even went to school early every morning to
pray over every desk, specifically mentioning the
individual problems of each of the students. I did
this for three months, and slowly but surely, I
began to see changes in my class. The students began
to be nicer with one another – more courteous and
thoughtful of each other’s needs. That’s the moment
this class morphed from being “difficult” to being
“great”!
I just smiled now at the
grade 4 teachers who were busy commenting on how
“lucky” I had been to have been given such a “great”
class. They had obviously forgotten how “terrible”
that same bunch of students had been just one year
earlier…
As I thought over the past
year, I realized that I hadn’t done anything on my
own to change those students. Instead, I had
followed David’s advice in Ps. 4:1: "Answer me when
I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief
from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my
prayer." (NIV). I had called upon the Lord, my
righteous God. I had begged Him for relief from the
distress brought on by my class, and He had, indeed,
been merciful to me. He had heart my prayer, and the
comments of these Grade 4 teachers were proof…
God cares, friends. He is
all-powerful, and when we trust in Him, just like
David of old, our prayers can move mountains! I
know, for my “mountains” – over 30 of them! – had
indeed been “moved”!
What “mountains” do you
have in your life that need to be “moved”? Follow
David’s example. Call out to God. Trust Him to give
you relief from your distress. Trust Him to be
merciful to you and hear your prayer. When you do,
you can be sure that He will come to you, and your
“mountains” – no matter how many of them -- will be
moved!
Rob Chaffart