The Price of FOLLOWING JESUS
I n May 2016 , I was fired ( and then agreed to resign ) from a teaching position at a residential home and school for troubled children in Virginia . I resigned because I would not agree to a lie . Most children there had suffered abuse and neglect directly from parents or indirectly through absentee parenting . All had deep hurts and bad habits . As my wife says , “ It ’ s not kids who have changed ; it ’ s parents .” The job was challenging but also very rewarding . Philippians 4:13 was one promise I clung to each morning as I prepared to teach : “ I can do all this through him who gives me strength .”
The home and school had conservative roots , and God increased my boldness over time . While I taught world history , I increasingly gave my students a biblical worldview . They asked if I was a Christian . “ Yes .” They also began to experience the freedom to bring God into classroom discussions . I ’ ll never forget one student saying , “ We can ’ t talk about God in public school , but we can here .” Most of the students appreciated this freedom . Many good discussions followed over the years — about God working in world history and our individual lives .
Just as Harvard , Yale , and Princeton changed , this school also changed . The founding director retired , and the Christian and conservative values went with him . Not overnight , but soon enough . In 2012 , supervisors began talking with me about keeping God out of the classroom . “ It ’ s the chaplain ’ s role to talk about God ,” they said . But I discovered the chaplain wasn ’ t even a Christian . So I had to make a decision . Would I remove God from my classroom or continue to include Him even though faith was now forbidden ? Ultimately choosing the latter cost me my job . But God gave me four more years to plant many more gospel seeds .
In 2016 a transgender boy entered our school and my classroom . I had no problem teaching him , but I would not pretend he was a girl , let him into the girl ’ s bathroom , or allow him to sit at the girl ’ s lunch table . I had taught for
BY DAVID PAINE
over eight years , but I was gone within eight weeks of John ’ s arrival . They counseled me and tried to change my thinking instead of the other way around . I presented my case and requested an exemption , but the leadership refused to bend . As a Christian , I could not agree with the wrong of this on so many levels . God gave me the courage to stand up and leave .
God ’ s next assignment for me was in a public school . It involved helping elementary children learn to behave ( a strange job in a public school ). Behavioral disorders are now one of the three special education categories . And once again , the question of worldview became primary . The public school ’ s humanistic worldview is that if you fix the environment , you will fix the child . This is an overly simplistic explanation but hopefully provides some insight . A Christian worldview involves training children to adjust to the school environment , with some flexibility when working with special needs . And that ’ s what I decided to do . Here are the rules ; if you follow them , there are blessings , but when you don ’ t , there are negative consequences . This was hard because these were not my kids nor my home . However , during the first two years , God blessed me with a decent amount of covering from the school principals . Also , my two assistant teachers were believers and agreed with the conservative approach . My wife , Elizabeth , worked in the same school as a teacher ’ s assistant and provided much encouragement and prayer support .
It was a beautiful thing to become a father figure to the boys in Room 132 . ( God only gave me boys .) I taught reading , writing , and math . There were play breaks throughout the day . I shared the gospel and prayed with them before they entered their regular education classes . They sat in time out with me when they refused to work or bit somebody on the playground . While in time out , I taught them right ways and encouraged them that with God ’ s help , they too could learn to behave . I got to shepherd their hearts . It was such a special , unique time , and many faculty and families saw the heart and behavior changes in these young boys .
Jesus said that the world would hate believers in Christ just as it hated Him . And once again , as a teacher , I experienced
42 THE RENEWANATION REVIEW