Two Tutors

"We are going through insist and give up all our lives. Sometimes we choose to insist on and sometimes we choose to give up. There are something worth remembering indeed, but there are also something we need to give up. Both insisting and giving up are kind of attitude,  to give up is courage and so is insisting. Most of the time we think to insist is better, but sometimes when we give up something, we receive more. We don't have a standard to measure which is better, it depends on what you think. Just do the right things that you think are right, not to be regret because life never turn back.  We should also learn to be satisfied, life doesn't always gives you what you want."   
 
This morning my 13-year-old Chinese student and I went back and forth between correcting her English and discussing the insightful and heart-revealing ideas she had expressed.  No assignment from school or from me prompted her to write on this topic.  She was thinking about these things, and so she wrote her ideas to practice her English for her lesson with me. 

Her writing lent itself to discussing whether there are any standards to measure right and wrong, any standards that would lead us to take a stand to always insist on something and to never give up on it.  I suggested that there are such standards, that we know innately, whether we are taught by society and our parents or not, such standards as telling the truth instead of lying, of being honest and not cheating on schoolwork as opposed to using someone else's work.  She seemed a little uncomfortable.  A guilty conscience perhaps?  Picking up on that, I introduced a new word to her: "conscience." 

I suggested that she come up with just ten basic rules to guide right and wrong behavior for the students at her school. She was a little overwhelmed with that idea, so I told her that ten basic rules of life have already been given by the one God who created the world and mankind.
       "Have you ever heard of The Ten Commandments?"
       "No."  
So I  told her the Story of the giving of The Ten Commandments and some of the history of Israel that led up to it.

In a review and homework email, I have challenged her to think about how people deal with the feelings of a guilty conscience, ineffective ways and effective ways.  I also explained that the purpose of the law was to show us our inability to keep it, and how Jesus' life and death can help free us from a guilty conscience and the consequences of our genuine guilt in breaking God's laws.  For homework, she will read the scriptural account of the story I told her.  She will read the 10 Commandments themselves and interact with my question and comment: "Have you ever broken any of these laws? I know I have!" 

Galatians 3:24 "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith."

Two tutors, I and the Law are working together, Lord willing, to bring this young one to Christ, that she may be justified by faith.