I want to be Jesus in their lives.

I have been reading the book "Searching for God Knows What," by Donald Miller. He talks about how we value ourselves by the relationships we hold in our lives. When man was in the garden it was no problem to esteem ourselves, because God himself walked with us. Now we look to others, who are looking to build themselves by the relationships they keep. What a fruitless viscious cylcle! As a child, a teacher posed the question, "If you were in a lifeboat with a doctor, a lawyer, a mother, a child, a cripple ande a blind man, and one person needed to be thrown overboard to keep the boat afloat, who would you choose?"

When Jesus walked the Earth, he was not tied to that value system. He had relationship with the hopeless, the helpless, the tax collectors, those shunned by society. Christianity has not been built on a book written, a formula, a set of rules, a series of seminars, but on relationship with Jesus.

As I have worked with challenged students, I have been aware of a palpable wall of despair that holds them back. " Why bother? I never get anything right." When the same student can be enticed to forget that barrier, he can do very well.

I want to be Jesus in their lives.