Witnesses and Agents of Hope and Grace

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

One of the advantages of teaching from a Christian perspective is that we can explore God’s grace and the message of hope. The passage from Romans has been on my mind the past couple of days and it is a passage that reinforces the message of grace and hope. This verse has been on my mind because in the Grade 5/6 creation studies class, we have been examining the beginnings of Canada and the story of New France.

A part of understanding the story of New France lead us to look at King Louis XIV of France. We discovered he was a powerful, self-centred, extravagant and misguided. He eventually begins to develop a god complex and we saw evidence that King Louis XIV portrayed himself as a god. The Grade 5/6 class wholehearted agreed that they would not want to be his friend or be ruled by him. However, because of King Louis XIV character traits, he help the development of a very small, almost forgotten colony, of New France grow and prosper. This growing colony became home to many from France who lives were filled with poverty and dead ends in France. In essence, there was no opportunity for growing or flourishing. They were hopeless. By moving to New France, many of these people had new opportunities. They prospered and flourished.

In class, we spent some time talking about the bigger story or the upper story. What was happening from God’s perspective? We see God’s grace in action. God used the negative characteristics of Louis XIV to develop a new colony. This new colony was a place of hope and flourishing. God was gracious. The people who dared to start new lives experienced this grace. They still faced many hardships, but there was hope. Hope is the key to flourishing and to leading a prosperous life.

Christian education is all about examining the messages of God’s grace and the message of hope in all of the subject areas. We do this for two reasons. First, in order for our students to fully grow, prosper and flourish they must have hope. A hope that is rooted in the grace of God. There need to hear, see and experience this hope. Secondly, we want our students to be agents of hope and grace. Once they are equipped, we desire to have our students offering hope to others in everything that our students do. Our desire is that our students will active agents of restoration in order that the Kingdom of God may flourish. Our efforts are not perfect and our student are not perfect either, but we can be assured that God’s grace will ensure that our work is blessed.