Taming the Natural Man

There is something interesting about the way we talk about education during these strange and turbulent times. It is an interesting approach, and not a bad one, but it sadly falls far short of the great potential we have as teachers.

We spend a lot of time in several different classes learning about human nature, how to use students' natural tendencies to our benefit, and how to get them to behave themselves. In short, we accept that people are just the way they are without trying to help them improve their characters, just so long as they behave themselves fairly decently. We accept human frailties as a fact of life--and not a fact of life to strive against, to try to improve. No, just something that is, that we can't change.

It is one thing to make the natural man behave himself. It is quite another to help the natural man change and grow closer to God, in essence, help him break from the mold of the Natural Man and accept his divine nature.

This reminds me of a quote by Ezra Taft Benson, on p. 64 of A Witness and a Warning:

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature."

I love that quote, because it really puts my role as a teacher into perspective. I am not here to manipulate behavior. I am here to be an instrument in the hands of God, to work with Him as He changes human nature, changes the human heart and soul, so that we each become more divine, truer to our identity as children of the living God.