September 9, 2025

Hi Friends,

Today is the first day of school and I’m a bit nervous. Will the class like me? Will I even be able to find the classroom (I have a number but no idea of the actual location.)? Am I really open to learning at this point in my life? It’s going to involve a lot of work. Will I be able to keep up? I’ve been away from formal education for so long. What if I say the wrong thing or screw something up? What if my technology doesn’t work properly? How soon do I need to get there so that I can feel “ready? 

Okay, for those of you who are a bit lost, I am going back to school today but not as a student; as the professor. I’ve done this before in other parts of the world but never here. I haven’t had a lot of time to prepare (just over a month) and, while my notes are in order, I’m completely unfamiliar with the classroom, the learning platforms employed by the school (Students don’t just hand in assignments written on paper. They submit them digitally. They are graded and returned digitally. Attendance is taken digitally. There could even be students who take the course remotely, using a digital platform.) Apart from all this that challenges the Luddite within me, I wonder about the students. Will they think that twenty-four hours spent with me over six weeks is worth it? Will I be able to communicate content as well as pastoral concern?

So many questions, so many uncertainties, so much that I can’t know or control. Can you relate?

Do you notice how almost all of my questions revolve around me — my comfort, my competence, my desires to be accepted and to make a difference?

As I wrestle with this nervousness, I actually here the voice of Jesus from the pages of John’s gospel. I’m paraphrasing slightly when I hear Jesus saying to me, “If I have different goals in mind, ‘what is that to you? You follow me.’”

It’s a corrective I need to hear. I’m not doing this for myself, though I hope I will benefit from this experience. Rather, God has called me to be willing to teach this course, in this time, to these students. He has a plan. He knows what he’s about. He’s invited me into that and expects me to be faithful — in preparing, in delivering what I’ve prepared, in serving my students, and in planting good seed that he can do with as he chooses. God is in this. My job is not to worry about outcomes but about being faithful and present and sensitive to the Spirit.

You may not be going back to school today but I bet you have some things that are at least niggling at you, even if they have not yet metastasized into full-blown worry. Perhaps we can simply trust God together and encourage one another with prayer and the knowledge that he knows what he is doing. I hope my words spur you on to faithful engagement with life today.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a classroom to find and students to impact.

Blessings!

Doug