Being Better

In my life, I have strived to be better. A better person then I was before, a better wife then I was yesterday, a better version of myself. How do I know to be “better”? Who taught me to be better? Typically I do not watch very much TV, but Friday night I was caught in an episode of Friday Night Lights. A young football player’s father had just returned from jail. This young man was told by many in his life to be better. His question, “Where do I learn to be better? He never taught me to be better.”

I made a decision long ago to dedicate my life to social service. When I was switching from teaching the Lord reminded me time and time again that I have a heart for urban youth. The Lord convicts each of us differently and I have always felt the inclination to effect change in our poor urban communities, mainly through education. The question that was provoked by this episode of Friday Night Lights and my current place in life, is “what I am really trying to teach the thirty trainees currently in my Program”?

There is an elevator answer to this question. I want them to be “job ready”. I want them to be “employable members of society”. I want them to learn to skill, earn a G.E.D., be a master of “soft skills”. The real answer – I want them to be better. I want them to see the future I see when I look at them. I want them to see beyond zip codes that have entranced their lives. I want them to be involved in their children’s life, get off government subsidy, and provide for themselves in their community. I want them to stop hustling and enjoy the marathon pace. I WANT for them but am I TEACHING them? I often boast about my teaching skills, making blanketed comments like “if only I could be teaching them all”. But here I am, given the opportunity to teach my trainees possibly the most important thing my parents taught me and I am quite possibly, failing.

Using my own life as an example is an unacceptable way of TEACHING them to be better. I have to make it personal. I have to SHOW them, MODEL for them what it means, how it feels, and the benefits of being a better person. Some of their lives have been a string of cycles of lies, manipulations, and playing the system. What if they learned to be better means to do it right? Learning to be better can be life changing. It can be what changes their lives and their time in the Program.

Are they in my program because no one has taught them to be better yet? Maybe. But I have committed to filling in the holes of their past while we focus on their future. My expectation is that this opportunity is not only about them earning their education, but being better. Better today then yesterday, better this minute then the last. Christ’s redemptive love works in this way, He wants us better for His courts. He teaches us with his word and guides us toward eternity.

Who are you making better? How are you teaching them to be better? None of us are finished. Even when my wonderful, awesome trainees are through with the Program, they will not be finished. However I hope to leave with them a desire to be better. I hope I have taught them to be better. I hope I have taught them to inspire the people around them to be better.