Absolutely

I have to confess that often during the end of April each year I spend more time reading English research papers I've assigned to my 11th and 12th grade students than I do God's Word. I don't do this because I have a twisted longing to read a lot of less than ideal writing about subjects that are trivial or worldly. I do this because it is part of my job to train students how to write--and they cannot learn to write without writing. However, there's always a lesson in there for me, even when I'm sixteen hours into grading research papers about topics such as a lottery to benefit education...

This year I asked my 11th graders take a stance on the often hotly debated topic of establishing a lottery that would benefit education in Alabama (somewhat like neighboring states). Due to the fact that they know very little about the subject up front, all but three chose to write on the pro-lottery side. It is interesting (and often scary) to get inside the heads of my students and see their teenage reasoning. Most of the papers included the logic that since people know gambling can be addicting, it's their own fault if they become addicted. This stance is especially appealing to them since my students (being almost of college age) perceive that a lottery that would offer them a scholarship would be a good thing at any cost to someone besides them. They live in a world that is full of selfish absolutes. The world (so they believe) mostly revolves around them and what would most benefit them. So what if it comes at the detriment of family? So what if it brings unsavory elements to our state? So what if very little of the promised money gets back into the education system? So what if God's word warns in I Timothy 6:10 that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" and that "some people, in their eagerness to get rich, have wandered away from the faith and caused themselves a lot of pain" (ISV)? The only absolute many of them know is the absolute of self-gratification. 

I spend a lot of time telling them (and writing on their papers) to avoid all absolutes in their writing. I mean this in the sense of words such as always and never, which inevitably undermine their reasoning as they write in analysis. However, as I read their papers defending their stances on a state lottery, I thought about how lacking in absolutes most of them were. They have absolutely no concept of who God is or what His nature is. They have absolutely no concept of the only absolute way to heaven--through Jesus Christ, as John 14:6 relates in Jesus' words: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (NIV).  They have absolutely no idea that each one of them will have to bend a knee before the judgment throne of God and give account for each deed (Philippians 2:10). It makes me sad that we live in a culture that my students have to initiate any discussion of "religion." I know that even though I do my best to live my faith in an obvious, intentional matter, I fall so short so often, and without words...how will they truly know if no one is sharing Christ with them? How will they know that there is absolutely nothing in this world that compares to the "surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8).  I have absolutely little understanding of the suffering Paul speaks of, but I do understand that Christ suffered all for my sin, and I want so much for them to understand and value His sacrifice that was also for them. I am also absolutely at a loss how to accomplish this in them, which is why I absolutely have to pray and rely on God to touch their hearts, grow their knowledge of Him, and bring those that are His to salvation in Christ.