I was watching an episode of “Chopped” the other day, and was intrigued. The main idea behind the cooking show is to see which chef (out of 4) can create the most savory, magical dish using several ingredients pulled from a picnic basket. While the show was highlighting the oddity of having a rare vegetable in the mix, a man named Madison shrugged it off, explaining that there was a time when he was homeless, and learned by scraping through the contents of dumpsters how to work with what he found. During Madison’s interviews he continually expressed that everything in his life, including past transgressions, helped shape him into the man he is today. Madison went on to win the competition against the other chefs, and ultimately won the most coveted award among chefs who appear on “Chopped”: 50 Grand, and an illustrious title of Top Chef among Top Chefs! I find it interesting that a man with Madison’s background whipped chefs who worked for years with famous men in high class metropolitan restaurants. I am sure that Madison put his time and training in with the best of them, but this definitely says something positive about the School of Hard Knocks.
I think you would agree it is a valuable thing to recognize life experience as a mode of transformation. I have been memorizing some verses on 3x5 index cards. One of my verses tells me that God teaches me what is best (Isa. 48:17) and the next verse tells me that God is not a liar (Num. 23:19). As I’ve been memorizing these, I have been trying to ask myself hard questions that I usually indulge in avoiding, such as “Do I truly believe that God teaches me what is best?” It is a hard pill to swallow. If this is true (and we know that God does not lie), then every hardship, every turn in my path, every scraped knee, queasy stomach and heartfelt pang of disappointment were for my best- to teach me what is best. It takes a good teacher to be able to pull this off.
Sometimes I am absolutely flummoxed as a music teacher knowing how to teach what is best. There is a pivotal point in lessons where the student has finished playing their first excerpt, and the teacher needs to say something. Sometimes I have a choice between 3 to 4 things, and if we really made an encompassing list there would be all sorts of things I could say, but they hardly matter. The most weighty decision is what the BEST thing is to say- the very thing that will not discourage the young budding artist, the thing that will sharpen their musical skills and make them a more dedicated violinist in the end. Sometimes that thing is not “You need to play your C sharp higher.” or “change the angle of your bow.” Sometimes it’s just “Why did you not practice this piece?” It is a tricky, delicate matter, and I don’t totally have it figured out, but I am impressed by a teacher who does- a teacher who knows His students, and has a bigger picture in mind for them. If God can mold a master chef out of a man scavenging the bottoms of trashcans, then that should reinforce my resolve to entrust my education to Him.
