Humbled

Teaching is such a humbling experience.
So to are the disastrous effects of the latest earthquake in Christchurch.

At time like these you realise how small you are.
As my home group leader Chris repeated again recently:
'As humans, we like to think we're at the top of the food chain.
We are quite magnificently not.
We're at one level and God... He's sitting way above that.'

God is the only one who can create, and capture/ take away.

This earthquake has shook me a bit, not nearly as it has in Christchurch. But I have a weakness for being unemotional in distressful times (that goes against my personality). But the sheer closeness of this event and the repitition of it has blown me away and had me questioning.
I have fervent hope that God will work His mighty hand on that region!

Yesterday I had some girls face their whole class while I interviewed them about their Dads involvement in helping out those in Christchurch. I had an idea where I could take the discussion, but these girls were so articulate it surprised me. It inspired and encouraged me and hopefully the class. It was a humbling experience - to be honest it was supposed to be that way - but it was even more humbling than I expected.

See just like the earthquake, I'm realising with teaching that sometimes things just don't turn out the way you hoped or expected. Every day I'm faced with small challenges to get students on my side so they will concentrate, listen and learn. [SIDE NOTE: I'm a peaceful playful person, so I like making friends with charm and hoping they will take my side - but some students just don't like you, and that's fair]. Sometimes the students are better than me, and other times lessons just go miserably.

To be humbled doesn't mean to be flattened completely though does it.
Because I don't feel like that.
I just know that I am weak through these humbling experiences and God must be so much more, to never assume such weakness.
I thank God that He is so much more powerful than me and anyone.
Psalm 46:
 ¹ God is our refuge and strength,
   an ever-present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
   and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam
   and the mountains quake with their surging.^[c]
 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy place where the Most High dwells.
⁵ God is within her, she will not fall;
   God will help her at break of day.
⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
   he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
 ⁷ The LORD Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.
 ⁸ Come and see what the LORD has done,
   the desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease
   to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
   he burns the shields^[d] with fire.
¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”
 ¹¹ The LORD Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Amen.