PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary by a word.
Morning by morning he wakens–
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
Is 50, 4
Any one who has been been a teacher knows the power of her word. The problem is the teacher never knows which word is the one that speaks a powerful message or which student will be moved. Well planned lessons may not touch the students as deeply as an honest comment rising from the heart in response to a moment. Sometimes, when a teacher feels least successful, she has spoken a word that has changed a student’s life. She may never know. Only years later, perhaps, when a student returns to thank her for something she said or did does the teacher realize the difference her work has made.
Isaiah speaks of the power of a teacher’s word to sustain the weary, and he continues, giving the source of that power: Truth. Each morning God wakens the teacher in Isaiah, opens his ears, and speaks. The good teacher listens to the Lord as his students listen to him. The teacher hears God’s truth and so has wisdom to share; wisdom that strengthens in times of trial.
Like the teacher, we are called to listen to God’s truth, to ingest it, let it transform our hearts so the words we speak, the lives we live sustain those who are weary and hungry for God’s Love.
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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