"Academic Shortsightedness Meets Spiritual Myopia" by Peter VanWylen

Everybody wants vision. A business owner needs a plan for future success. Parents want to see their children have good lives and want to help their children see this vision. Young adults desire a plan for finding worthwhile employment and long-term companionship. Most people seem to have goals, but not everybody actually achieves them. Living and working this year in an area poorer than where I grew up, I have seen more dashed hopes and unrealized dreams than I would like. I wonder if shortsightedness isn’t one of the greatest root causes of poverty.

I was thinking about this today as I met with the mother of one of my students. He is one of those good-natured but not-so-disciplined students who comes to class, gets out paper and a pencil, and feigns interest for about seven minutes. He cannot, however, be persuaded to focus or do anything productive for the rest of class. Somehow those papers he scribbles on never seem to get turned in with the weekly homework packet; instead they get jammed hastily in a locker on the way to lunch and are lost forever in a jumble of clothes, paper and books.

The sad thing about this situation is that the young man of whom I speak has big plans. He has been in the drum corps of the marching band all four years of high school, became drum major as a senior, and is very excited about continuing on with band in college. Never mind the fact that he is failing too many classes to graduate and enter college – even if he takes summer school to try to catch up. The problem is that for the last two or three months he has been skipping several classes a day – apparently so that he can go hang out in the band room to practice, improve his skills, or chat with the band director.

Last week, I realized that his name was on the list of students needing to make up two Gateway exams, which are required for graduation. His name had been on the list all week, but he had skipped the test days earlier in the week to practice for a band performance. So on the last day to make up the exams, I tracked him down and ordered him to get into the testing room and take them. He told me he would worry about the exams later: there was an important band field trip and performance for the local elementary school, and the bus was leaving within the hour. When the band director told him that required exams come before field trips, he was off like a flash. He ran to the exam room, impatiently requested his exam materials and within a half hour was finished filling in random bubbles on both 3-hour exams… just in time to make the bus for the band trip. He did not, needless to say, pass either exam!

One of my more common mini-sermons to students is on vision versus shortsightedness. “Every class you skip,” I say, “is $120 of future income down the drain. Every class you work hard in is worth $120 in future opportunities and income.” I wilt (and rant) whenever I hear that a student is regularly having his mother come to check him out of school an hour early so that he can make an extra $7.25 working at the grocery store instead of investing in his mind. I have come to believe that often it is not the poor who become shortsighted but rather the shortsighted that become poor.

This morning as I got ready for school I was lamenting several shortsighted behaviors that are very common among my students. I was quite preoccupied pondering why these foolish students can’t see more than 24 hours in front of them when I realized that shortsightedness is present in most all of the sin that I struggle with in my own life. The internal battle going on inside of me between “the flesh” and “the spirit” is related to the conflict between the long-term vision given me by the Holy Spirit and the short-term satisfaction and happiness that consumes me by my sinful nature.
My half-hearted pursuit of God and my preference for temporary relationships with friends and peers is shortsighted. I am shortsighted when I spend more time thinking about and seeking a potential mate then I spend walking with my eternal lover, God and King. My preference for human praise over pleasing God is shortsighted. I am shortsighted (perhaps even blind) when I avoid ministry to friends who are skeptical of spiritual things simply because I want to avoid disagreement and ridicule. When I do this, I am shortsighted in forgetting the fact that they were made to spend eternity with their Creator. Who am I to groan over a student who can’t look past the next few days and see his whole life, when I can’t look past my life and see God’s eternal kingdom and my eternal dwelling with Him?

My prayer for growth is simple. I have to see past the schoolwork and paperwork, past the next social event, past the praise that I get when I do something well. I must see further. I must see all the way into God’s eternal kingdom and my dwelling with Him.

May, 2008