I love to teach!
I mean, I LOVE to teach!
It scares the boogiggers out of me. Yet, there's a fire that burns inside my bones that feels it must! that feels it has to!, that is dying to get out! Dying to tell it! Dying to scream it from the roof tops. Dying to tell it to my neighbors. Dying for an outlet somewhere. Hear me loud: I looooonnnngggng to teach!
I miss it when I'm not doing it.
Technically, you could say that I'm doing it now. But technically, I don't feel that I am. Right now I am teaching in two women's prisons, and soon to start a new group next week. But, to me, it's not the same. We have material to go by. Books to follow. Lessons already prepared, that we minutely follow.
That doesn't do it for me. That isn't what I was wired for. I long to use the Word alone for the material and manna we gather. It's harder for me to do it when the lesson plan is all mapped out. I can do it. But it leaves me lacking. It doesn't fulfill me. And right now I feel like I'm about to explode! I feel like I am about to b-u-r-s-t!
I love the dig! I love the hunt. I love shoveling and delving deeper and sifting each word. I love getting the magnifying glass out! I love the discovery of it. The treasure that's found. I love what my Jesus will show me in the silence at home alone all by myself in my room.
Lately the verse that echoes continually in my mind is the one found in Luke 19 where the whole crowd of disciples were joyfully praising God in loud voices for all that they had seen Him do. They praised Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!..." Some of the Pharisees in the crowd tried to get Jesus to stop them. That's when Jesus answered and said, ""I tell you," He replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out"" (19:40).
That's how I feel. If I keep quiet, if I stay silent, if my voice stays in stillness... the rocks will cry out. I feel I have-to cry out.... or the rocks will have to!
""But if I say, "I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name," His word is in my heart [my inner man, my mind, my will, my thinking, my appetites, my emotions, my passions] like a fire [a consuming fire], a fire shut up [restrained, closed up, withheld, stayed, detained, halted, stopped, retained] in my bones. I am weary [weary, impatient, grieved, faint, exhausted] of holding it in [seizing it, containing it, holding it back, restraining it, enduring it]; indeed, I cannot [am not able, don't have the power to, lack the strength to]" (Jer 20:9).
Oh, at the fire that burns to cry!
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