To All Sunday School Teachers Current and Past

[Esther]

To All Sunday School Teachers

Today as I was at a friend’s funeral, her son greeted me as soon as I arrived with a big hug telling me how special I was to him. He also said I hadn’t changed a bit, but I’m sure the good Lord will forgive him for that tall tale. 

Then the funeral began and his cousin, who also was a former Sunday school student of mine, began the funeral and did an excellent job. As he was speaking I began reminiscing about how that all began.

My pastor asked me to help in the high school Sunday school class, which I was happy to do. The teacher was a licensed UPC minister and I was happy to help him. After observing him teaching for three or so weeks, he said why don’t you plan on teaching next week. I said, “Oh no! The pastor just wants me to observe. He said, “The pastor told me he wants you to start teaching”. So I said, “Ok, I will do my best”.

I went home and fasted for three days to teach HALF of the lesson. I’ll never forget it because it was on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Did I mention I was nervous? I was terrified. What if they ask me a question I can’t answer? What am I going to do? Of course, pride said you don’t want to be dumber than the students. I studied all week for my 15 – 20 minute part.

The told me to plan on teaching again the next week. I thought oh goodness, Lord Help me! So I fasted, don’t know that it was three days, but something and prayed, and studied, and prayed and studied for my HALF of the lesson. You would have thought I had the whole lesson to teach. I can’t tell you what the lesson was on, but it was NOT on the parable of the Good Samaritan. However, God gave me another insight on the parable of the Good Samaritan and I shared that with the class. The other teacher told me after class he had never noticed that about that parable before. Said the lesson was good and plan on teaching again next week.

Same story as the week before, again the Lord gave me another insight into the parable of the Good Samaritan. There was no way I was going to share that. Pride told me that they would think that was the only parable I knew. Oh, if I could only turn back the hands of time and undue my ignorance. I heard Sis Nona Freeman tell a story years later of how the Lord gave her one verse of scripture to preach from for one solid week. Each night it was the same single verse. It caused a man that had came for three nights to come the rest of the week to see if that was the only scripture she would preach from and how many ways she could preach from that one scripture. End of story he got saved the last night of that revival.

When I began teaching in that class we had all of four students. I began to fast and pray that the Lord would fill that room full of students. And he not only filled the room but we had an overflow of students, with them sitting in the hall.

They came to this class without driver’s license, most not dating, and many not having any idea what they wanted to do after they graduated. Needless to say, their emotions were like roller coasters.

I would go to the church early in the morning and pray for the students calling each one by name and one morning the Lord gave me my first vision. I saw these people walking up a hill but they had what looked like glue or bubble gum stuck to their feet and it was wearing them down trying to climb the hill. So I asked the Lord what that meant that He had shown me. And He told me that they had so much of the world attached to them it was making their walk with Him difficult.

What a thrill it is to see some of these students I labored and prayed over preaching the gospel and some that are still in the church. When they come up to me and tell me I was their favorite teacher or something special that I had taught that they still remember is so rewarding to me. One remembered the treasure hunt I planned for them what a thrill it was to him.

If you’re a Sunday school teacher and feel discouraged please know that even though you may not see any fruit of your labors now, give it time and it will come back to you.

There are possibly other Sunday school teachers here that can share even more uplifting stories than mine.

God bless you in all your efforts in laboring for the Kingdom.