My best example of this was a couple of months ago. I taught my elementary kids a song about making pop-corn.... pop pop pop pop popcorn.... ooooooollllllld fashioned pop corn. It really was a fun song and the kids seemed to like it. Well.. In the book where that song was there was a picture of a little girl and her dad making popcorn on a stove. So of course, I had a discussion about why her dad was there. We even asked our pretend mom or dad if it was ok to use the stove when we made our pretend pop-corn. It was great. Well.. fast forward a couple weeks... I was putting dinner in the oven and i burned the fire out of my arm. It made a HUGE red burn across my arm. ( I still have the scar today)
Well... the day after I burned my arm, I'm sitting in class with my first grade and one of the little girls gasps and yells "What happened to your arm!!" and without missing a beat I said "Well, I was trying to put something in the oven without my parent's and sure enough I got burned" the kids all gasped.. one even said "You have parents?!?!?!" It was pretty funny, but they learned a lesson. They know that if they don't have their parents with them around a stove they can get burned. It's not a very in depth lesson but still.. It might keep some of them from getting burned. :)
Anyway.. on to the lessons I'm learning.
Since I'm a music teacher.. I listen to all types of music. Christian, Rock, pop, some rap, country.. pretty much everything. I do this for a reason. Mainly so I can talk to my kiddo's about the music they are listening to. There have been several times I have been able to use a popular pop song to teach a lesson, or drive in a point. But that's not the kind of music I truly enjoy listening to.
Lately God has been pulling me closer and closer to Contemporary Christian Music. Not necessarily Praise and Worship Stuff.. ( Which i love also) but the more modern upbeat music. I honestly can't seem to get enough of it. I listen to the Christian station on the way to and from work, and if I'm listening to music on Pandora at home, It's on a Sanctus Real Station ( Great Band by the way)
I just can't seem to get enough.
Last week, I decided last minute ( well, God pretty much made it happen) that my best friend and I were going to go to WinterJam www.jamtour.com It's a christian concert with all different types of bands there. I have to say that it was totally awesome!!! We were on the floor, twelve rows back. It was amazing.
What's even more amazing is realizing that where we sat was exactly in God's plan. Little did I know when that concert started, it wasn't the bands that were going to leave me with a lesson learned or inspired to do more for the Glory of God, it was the people around me.
There was a young man, probably around my age, maybe a little older sitting directly in front of me. He was a very polite man, but looked nothing like the part of a person that would be at this concert. He pretty much looked like a bad"a" fella. He had his hat on backwards,baggy clothes, tattoos all over, and a dip in his mouth. Now I'm not proud of this at all, but at first glance, I judged him. I thought "I wonder what he's doing here" "He doesn't look like your normal Christian Music listener" I even thought, I bet his girlfriend made him come. But as the night went on, no one joined him. He was alone. And as the night progressed God spoke to me through him in the coolest way. This guy ( I don't know his name, but I wish I did) taught me so many things. Every time we would pray, he took his hat off, every time a new artist would come up he would be singing all of the songs, every time a speaker would talk of God and all of the things he had done for them, he would clap and rejoice for the people around him.
All of this left me speechless and feeling so ashamed of myself. How could I judge this man, I don't even know him. I wasn't judging him by thinking "Oh he's a bad person" that thought never even crossed my mind. I feel like I always give people a chance when it comes to that. But I was judging him by thinking "wow, he looks out of place"
Who am I to say he looks out of place? Is there a certain look for people who love God and praise him??? No!! Is there a certain look for Christians?? No!There isn't. This guy taught me that. He taught me never ever to look at a person and think that they don't belong, or feel like I know what kind of person they are, or even what they like.
I guess my point is that we all tell ourselves "Oh, I don't judge people" But we do. And for the most part, I don't judge people, I do my BEST not to judge people. But I'm not perfect. Slowly and surely God is showing me EXACTLY how I judge people and helping me to realize it so I can change it. It's not a fun feeling at all. I just wanted to sit down and cry and apologize to that man for thinking that about him, but just as I was feeling that, one of the artists spoke about how forgiving God is and I felt like that was spoken just for me. God is forgiving, and even though I feel completely horrible for judging him, i can ask for forgiveness. I can use this as a learning point and never do it again. Never judge someone for how they look, or where the live, or what their lifestyle is.
I wish there was a way for that Guy to know what he taught me, but thats ok. I've been praying for him. And thanking God for him, for the lesson he taught me. For the lesson God taught me through him.
You know, as I look back part of me want's to say.. you know Jennifer.. it's not a big deal. It's not like you thought he was a bad person.. and it's not like you think that about everyone that looks that way.. you've got lots of friends with tattoo's and that dip, and that wear baggy clothes and you've never thought bad of them for it..... Stop being so hard on yourself... But I did judge him, and even if I haven't judged the other people around me for it, I judged him.. and that's wrong. And it's something I do not want to do again.
And this was just ONE of the people I learned lessons from that night!
There was a little girl about three rows up from me, she was probably thirteen or so, and every song that would come on she would just completely jam out. Her arms would be up in the air, she was praising God and she didn't care how she looked, who saw her, or anything. She was having a ball. I just remember looking at her thinking, I need to be like her. I mentioned at the start of this blog I'm way overly conscious of the people around me. I worry to much about what people think of me. Not this little girl. I want to be like that! I want to be praising God, Dancing doing whatever I want and looking as crazy as I want and to not care!
There was a woman probably in her late thirties to my immediate right. She was in many ways like the young girl a few rows ahead of her. She was praising God without any hesitation. At one point in the night she looked over at me and smiled. When she did I saw that she had some sort of problem with her Left eye. It was closed. I'm not sure if she lost that eye or if she was blind, or what had happened to her. But it didn't slow her down! I remember thinking, how many times do I think poor pitiful me. How many times do I feel down on myself because of my weight, or because of my hair not looking right. These are things I can change. But this woman can't change her eye.. and it doesn't bother her a bit! She doesn't let it get in the way of Praising God.
So I went into that concert expecting to be moved by the music I heard and I came out with so much more. A new outlook on life even. To never assume someone doesn't have a personal relationship with the Lord. No matter what they look like, where they live, or what they have been through, and to Always praise God without ceasing. No matter whats going on, no matter whose around. Praise him as if I'm alone in a room with just me and him.
I want to be one of those people in that concert. I want to be the kind of person that people look at and say Man I want to be like her.... Look at how she's serving the Lord.
Maybe in time, with God's help I will be : D
Here is a video of one of the Bands that I saw perform. I absolutely LOVE this song. I hope you will too :)
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