To please who?

“The students say that they don’t like . . . ”
“But God says . . .”

“We need to change _________ so that we come up to the standard of other schools.”
“But we have a different purpose then most schools.”

“The students want . . .”
“It won’t honor God if we do that.”
“But then we will loose students.”

********

Thoughts whirl around in my mind . . .

I never imagined the challenge that it would be to operate a mission school. It really doesn’t take long to be so attached to the students that the natural inclination is to do what they want. Not to mention it just doesn’t feel good to displease people. But what are we here for anyway?

The last thing that I like to see is a student leaving because they didn’t like it here. Will they ever give their life to Christ? Will they ever find the joy of service?

Yet the fact is that we are here to represent Christ. And the devil knows just the best ways to push our soft spots and get us to do things different than we ought to.

Oh, the struggle. We are called to not conform to the ways and expectations of the world. Yet we are to be the best that we can be in everything that honors God. It is easy to think that some people could be lost if by doing God’s will we did things that turned them away because they would no longer be under our influence. But it’s a lie of the devil. Only if we are doing those things that honor God can our influence be any good. To do things that God does not want just to keep them here is worse than doing something that they don’t like and would cause them to leave.

We meet situations like this every day. But we serve a merciful, sustaining God.

“Oh, for grace to trust Him more.”