The 'New Normal'
Teachers are a passionate and resourceful bunch. If there’s a challenge, we can be guaranteed to find a solution. But this year has been different. If you’re anything like me, the usual weariness that sets in as the winter approaches has only been amplified by the arrival of Covid-19, and its often devastating effects on school communities and the lives of the families it serves. Masks, social distancing, spraying desks, live-streaming lessons, tearful pupils uncertain of their future, cold open-windowed classrooms: if this is the ‘new normal’, I hope to never get used to it.
What, then, as Christians, can we do in this unique and challenging situation? The familiar words of Isaiah 40 offer us hope and comfort.
Unlike us, God does not grow weary.
Isaiah 40: 28-31 puts it like this:
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40 is written to the exiles of Israel and Judah, descendants of people captured by Assyria and Babylon. They would have been a despondent and demoralised people, with their situation seemingly without hope of reprieve. But the writer draws this chapter to a close by reminding the Israelites about God’s power over all of their circumstances.
Whatever we are facing, however hard and endless our days and weeks might seem at the moment, they are in the hands of the God who made them, and us. We’ve heard over and over again that we are living in ‘unprecedented times’. But no times are unprecedented for God. Our times are in God’s hands (Psalm 31)
Unlike us, God does not grow faint. He does not tire, sleep, forget, give up or grow weary. No difficulty, now or in the coming months, can ever overwhelm him. Not year-group isolations, or positive Covid diagnoses, or pupils and colleagues at breaking point. Nothing is out of his control, and nothing is beyond him.
Verses 29 and 30 remind the Israelites of God’s promises to them:
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
We are fallible. Early nights, good food, helpful colleagues and regular exercise will do us good. But they will not sustain us in the midst of teaching during a global pandemic. No matter how young, fit and well we might be, perseverance and determination will only take us so far. We must rely on God’s promise to ‘give power to the faint’. When we have no might, when exhaustion overwhelms us and our to-do list is too long, when we are worried for our students and for our own families, God alone can increase our strength.
Faith in action
These verses are all very well, but how can they be applied practically to teachers working during 2020 and in the coming year? Verse 31 encourages us to ‘wait for the Lord.’ This means that we can look to God in faith and expectation, as a God who is sovereign over all and who keeps His promises. So, we should:
1. Pray: even if it’s during your commute to work, or quickly before each lesson begins, or as you head to bed early, come before God in prayer. Trust in him alone to give you what you need day by day, even hour by hour. We cannot do this in our own strength, but God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3).
2. Read God’s Word: it is full of promises, comfort and hope that this world, and especially 2020, cannot provide. It reminds us that, when things seem hopeless, the ‘God of hope’ (Romans 15) will never fail us.
3. Keep in touch with your church family: by phone, text message, letter, Zoom, face-to-face if the rules allow for it. In this tough season, we need encouragement from those who can point us to God’s Word, and pray with us.
4. Share our hope with our colleagues who do not know Jesus: they might be waiting for lockdown to end, or a vaccine, or a cure, but as Christians we are called to ‘wait upon the Lord’ because we know he can be trusted far more than any solutions the world can offer. Do our colleagues know this? Pray for opportunities to share this sure and certain hope with those who do not know the Lord.
Amy Ward, English Teacher in South Yorkshire.