I’ve been struggling lately.
I go to the orphanage everyday, and everyday I teach the kids how to type. But for the kids, the novelty of having a half an hour of computer time has worn off. Now they see it as a mundane routine of: Come in, sit down, and type what I tell you.
Not only are the kids getting worn out with that routine, but I am too.
Deep down, I know they desire to learn. And I enjoy teaching them. Yet, kids are kids—people are people—and when flesh craves a new novelty, determination controls motivation.
In that moment, I, as their teacher, become obsolete and they become subject to their own desires.
To attempt to break that monotonous cycle, we decided to have Saturday Movie Morning. Our pick: Beauty & the Beast.
[despite their faces, they were really excited to watch the movie]
It was as if they had transformed from their own version of Beast into Beauty. Finally happy and content, the kids were incessantly engaged in one activity for longer than ten minutes.
But just as the kids had an attitude change when we brought in our laptop and set up for the movie, I realized that I am not far from that child-like attitude.
My daily devotionals lead me to this passage:
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
[Romans 7:21-25]
I am no good. I am eternally screwed up. I am, essentially, a beast of sorts.
But, by the grace of God, my evil has turned into a high-quality, modern day version of Beauty herself.
So, back to square one: I have been struggling lately. And when I say “lately," I guess I really mean “always." When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. However, my soul is eternally delighted in what and who my God has graciously allowed me to be:
Belle, the Beauty.
[our colorful orphanage in Phnom Penh]
