When I was in 2nd grade, I had a teacher (she was a long-term substitute because my teacher was getting cancer treatment) who wanted to push me to “do better” in my school work. She had me write an essay about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I did not have the best feelings for this teacher because she had sent me to the office multiple times, and I was not used to getting sent to the office. This teacher and I had a personality clash. I liked learning but did not like doing repetitive assignments that went over the same material over and over. I wanted to get my work done and learn something new. All my teachers before had liked my energetic nature (or at least they told my parents so), but this one preferred still and silent, more than I was able to muster in my 7-year-old little boy body. I think the principal knew this because I never even got a raised voice from him when I was sent there. He would usually just let me sit in the office for 15 min and then send me back. Well, I saw her strategy coming… I had been around my parents enough and knew this assignment was to,“prove a point.”
And so, in a very Christmas Story movie way, I set out to write an essay to prove a point of my own. My goal was not to get a BB gun out of the deal like in the movie, but it was to write an essay that would get her off my back… And so I attempted in my feeble 7-year-old mind to write the most convincing essay about how my life goal was to be a ditch digger. To toil away with a strong back and weak mind digging the deepest and longest trenches by hand at a speed that modern machinery could not compete with, much in the vein of the classic Legend of John Henry. My plan was to show her that I wouldn’t use all this learning I was getting anyway, so she should lessen her desire to see me excel. Well... after my teacher called my parents, and I got in sufficient trouble, deservedly so, I ended up having a good relationship with this substitute. She just wanted to push me to do as well as I could, and I actually liked being one of her helpers after that.
I told this slightly off-topic and personal story simply to highlight that I have always had an affinity for ditches. I did like to dig with a shovel as a boy, with an excavator as a man, and still to this day, don’t mind turning over some dirt. I also love the lesson I learned about clear communication and hard relationships turning good. But something I love even now is knowing where the ditches are in life. Maybe some of you remember driving with your dad and grandpa and hearing them say as they swerved on the road, “Well at least I kept it between the ditches!” The emphasis of that quip is an admission of some less-than-perfect driving, but also that the greater danger of leaving the road for the ditch was avoided. Life is not so different than that. I have tried to hone in on what I want my kids to know at this stage in their lives, and have landed on a few very simple things. I pray the fruit of the Spirit over them. The list found in Galatians 5:22 and 23 lists them as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We have also talked about those gifts, enough so that they remind me how often I forget to quote “faithfulness” when I quote the list. Now I can never forget it and nail the list… finally getting it consistently right after probably having it “memorized" for 25ish years. But what I love about this list is that it truly is a ditch, or rather if you live out these gifts of the Spirit, you will not go into the ditch because of the phrase tacked on after self-control. Paul, the writer of Galatians, says, “Against such things, there is no law.” Whatever mistakes you make when swerving a little on the road of life, you will avoid the big, scary ditches if you are living out the fruits of your connection to Jesus. Suffering will still happen. You will still annoy or frustrate people. You will hurt someone's feelings and have yours hurt as well, but there is no law against these things. These things will never swerve you into a ditch.
My next “avoid the ditches” scripture to share with my kids will be Psalm 15. It starts with the basic question (in the Will paraphrase) “God… who can live with you?” And it ends with (again, my paraphrase), “You can’t swerve someone in a ditch who does these things.” I will let you read the middle stuff on your own, but again, I love these rock-solid promises. As I teach my kids, but also as I continually remind myself, God himself loves us enough to tell us how to avoid the ditches. Life is not like any of us imagined as a 7-year-old, I am sure, but there is so much joy in walking the road with Jesus. Whether you swerve a bit, or you get a little too excited and run ahead, or if you are struggling with despair and lagging behind. No matter your situation, Jesus offers a gentle path to stick close to HIM and with HIM to avoid the ditches.
Blessings,
Will Regier