About resources and reliance

I‘ve been visiting schools in The Netherlands for over ten years now and have always been bowled over by the warmth of love and hospitality that I’ve received. I’ve also been impressed by the depth of faith I’ve encountered and the way that the resources available to you are stewarded to try and develop that in your pupils. The stark contrast with my own experience is that the schools I have worked with for over thirty years in the UK have no government funding and so financial resources have always been tight.

I have often wondered if I would have preferred it otherwise and to be honest, sometimes the answer has been “yes”. I have longed for better buildings, better resources and better salaries across our schools.

Balanced against that though is the depth of relationship with Him that I know the Lord has built in us, in part through the experience of needing to trust Him for everything. It has given us the capacity to trust for greater things than we might normally expect. It has also kept us sharp in our focus on our calling and our task.

We are called to make disciples of the nations (Matt. 28:19) and nations are built through classrooms. Our calling as Christian teachers is to help each individual pupil along the pathway towards what our Heavenly Father has in His purpose for them. Nothing less than that will do. Our context for doing that is education, the means for doing that will be the subjects and skills that we teach them, but we also need to keep in mind our motivation.

I know that my motivation is tested through lack, but the way to overcome lack and to strengthen resolve has been through an increased intimacy with God built on His word. I have so many examples of times when I have been in great need, not just finances but faith and favour as well. The only option open to me has been to push in harder to God’s love and intimate presence.

This has changed my teaching and my relationship with my pupils. At times I have seen beautiful and extraordinary things happen which have changed lives and without being in desperation these things might not have happened.

Good resources are a sign of God’s blessing. There is nothing wrong with them at all, but we must be sure to be focussed on our Lord and His purpose. Whether our needs are great or small, we should ensure that through them we are drawn nearer to Him because then He will draw nearer to us.

GRAHAM COYLE

National Director of the Christian Schools’ Trust and Chairman of the European Educators’ Christian Association. He is from England.

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