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Shine On Me
I’ll admit it, when “shine” settled in my heart as the word of the year, my first that was how the Lord wanted to me to shine so that He may shine through me. I still think that’s true, so how ironic that the first verse I’m studying is not from that perspective.
Shine Your Face
It’s actually a good place, and the exact right place, for me to start this journey with the Lord, and shine.
Make Your face shine upon Your servant, And teach me Your statutes.
Psalm 119:135
Certainly, I hope there was no thought in my head of going about my life and learning to allow the Lord’s light to shine through me without first learning more of HIM and asking Him to shine His face ON me, not that I could light up the world around me, but rather that He could teach me His statues-His ways.
Teach me
The teacher in me inherently and immediately defaults to the litmus test of a true teacher: the measurable results of the learner.
You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Teachers have an understanding much the same; you can teach but you cannot make a student learn. I get it, fully-especially as an educator, but I take issue with it at the same time. Too often it’s an excuse more often than a reality.
There are so many avenues to teaching-which I define as reaching a student in a way they can understand, learn and grow. Easier said than done.
Teach me that I may learn, know, grow, do…
The Difference
There is a difference.
Look carefully at the details. The difference lies with how the word is used: with or without an object. Dictionary.com separates the verb teach very subtly but decisively.
Without an object it is, “to impart knowledge or skill, to give instruction.”
Look how that changes when used with an object: “to impart knowledge of, or skill in; give instruction in.”
Shine on me
Back in Psalms 119:135, we read:
Make Your face shine upon Your servant, And teach me Your statutes.
Romans 2:13 HCSB
Here, scripture uses teach with an object, and that object is me. The Lord has a targeted purpose in teaching us, and it is that we learn.
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:22
For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous.
Romans 2:13 HCSB
Shine Your Face on Me
Make Your face SHINE upon Your servant, and teach ME, (Lord, that I may LEARN and DO) Your statues.
