"The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him." Lamentations 3:25a

“What were we waiting for?” Those are the words that keep reverberating in my mind as this school year progresses. They were some of Prof. Hanko’s final words at our school’s fall dinner, in his speech reflecting upon our school’s starting. And then I think, “Now that it’s here, there’s work to do, and there is no time to waste…”
I personally have been using this word wait a lot lately. Waiting for the doctor to see me. Waiting for the treatments to start, and end. Waiting for the test results. All this waiting makes me think, “I can’t wait to get back to work.”
There’s another word we frequently use with waiting. It’s patience. Waiting requires it, and by grace it is given. The Scriptures are full of this command, or encouragement. We wait for, and on, the Lord, and we wait patiently for His Son.
Certainly these are good ways to use the word, and there certainly is a time to wait patiently. But I want to remind you of another meaning. Think of the waiter in the fancy restaurant, or the servant in the mansion. He waits motionless in the background until called upon, or until he sees a need to be fulfilled. He certainly learns to wait patiently. But then he is also ready for service when signaled or called. And that is expected of him. He’d better be ready for action.

So too with us, in our covenant calling here at this Christian school. I sometimes see or think of the elderly saints who have been waiting many years for this school. Their faces become very bright as they see this school realized. This alone ought to make us see the signal or hear our call to action. We’ve been waiting for this school. Now it’s here. We’d better jump to serve, and encourage each other to keep right on working.

We thank God for the strength and grace He gives to us each day to do our work. We thank Him for the many who have helped in this cause. We pray that He will continue to bless our school, as He already has so richly. Let us all be busy in the work, while we wait for Christ to come.

The building of this school is progressing nicely. We anticipate the addition of a junior class in the fall, and eagerly await a new set of freshmen. We continue to work on our curriculum, and all of the necessary planning involved in the day-to-day operations.

I encourage you to read further. Mrs.Looyenga reflects on curriculum planning and running with patience. We also include some student compositions as samples of work being accomplished.

RM

The 2002 Winter Olympics hosted by our own United States have recently drawn to a close. With much fanfare and regalia, Olympic athletes have entered the stadiums and made their ascent to the slopes of Salt Lake City to compete over the past several weeks, some to experience the exhilaration of victory, others to know only the despair of defeat.

The Olympic games, whether summer or winter games, have worldwide significance. It was estimated by one newscaster that approximately 1/3 of the world’s population would be witnessing - either in person or via televised broadcast - the closing ceremonies celebrating these modern-day heroes and heroines of athletic competition.

The Olympics had their origin in ancient Greece, and the writer of the biblical epistle to the Hebrews, undoubtedly well acquainted with the intention of these games - the show of individual military prowess and nationalistic fervor - often uses metaphors of athletic competition to describe the life of sanctification that culminates in heavenly victory for the Christian soldier. In the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, immediately following the well-known chapter recounting those whose lives testified of the faith that united them to the Word of God, believers are exhorted to “run with patience (Gr- hypomones -endurance) the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith….” This they will do in presence of the “cloud of witnesses”, those to whom the epistle-writer has referred in the previous chapter, those who have already run, and won, the race.

Last summer, as I was outlining the components of the curriculum that I would be teaching during the coming school year, I did much reading on the subject of curriculum planning , beginning, in fact, with referring to the dictionary definition of the word itself. I found no surprises in the definition of the word, but was interested to discover that it had its origin in the Latin verb currere- “ to run”. The words of Hebrews cited above came to mind almost immediately and so I consulted the passage.

I understood the fact that runners all we are - believers on a course laid out by the Almighty God Himself for us. Whether parent, teacher, supporter, or student, we are together running every day of our lives toward that goal of eternal glory with God.

But, I must admit, in the weakness of my own sinful human pride, I first visualized myself as an exhorter, running alongside students, encouraging them toward the finish line. How wonderful it was to think of that - especially having been a runner of very small ability in my real-life athletic career! Appearing strong, confident, unhindered, I would be the teacher showing her disciples both the trail and the technique. I would supervise them to the finish line where at last I could watch them cross as winners.

And then I read the words fatal to all self-aggrandizement: “ Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith [italics mine-SL]…” The death of pride was imminent as I delved further into the text. This word looking (Gr.- aphorao), my commentary told me, was actually better translated as “looking away or fixing one’s gaze elsewhere”. What? I wasn’t even supposed to be watching my students? They weren’t supposed to have their eyes trained on me? And what about the crowd of witnesses there for our encouragement- they wouldn’t be cheering for our accom-plishments as we traveled down that long and difficult course, either?

I began to have a whole new understanding of curricular planning. Whatever I taught for every course (another appropriate word) would have to point my students to Jesus. In fact, throughout all of my teaching, I could not even, for one moment, take my own eyes off Jesus, or I wouldn’t be able to run the course myself. He was the Author and Finisher of the faith that would hold me to the course - that “certain knowledge” and “assured confidence”, worked by the Holy Spirit through the gospel in our hearts - the knowledge of the “remission of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation given us freely by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.” (LD VII)

In a world that celebrates the individual, whether in athletic, economic, or spiritual pursuits, we are not, as believers, untouched by the spirit of pride that would so easily hinder our run to the finish line - the sin that would lead us to take our eyes off the Author and Finisher of our faith and look elsewhere, and neither are the children of the covenant with whom we run the race.

As I pondered the impossibility of running alongside God’s covenant children from day to day on the course of life, trying in my own power to keep them “in the faith”, I was filled with humble thankfulness that mine was not to see them cross as winners, but to help them see the Cross as winners - in Christ Jesus. SL