Education as the Humane Agent
EDUCATION IS FOR A LOVE
By Leonardus Nana
Human being is the beloved creature of God, the Almighty. They have the qualities of God, their creature. However, the nature of human such as impatient, impurity, disloyalty and greediness has corrupted and declined the love and the qualities that God has set for them.
However, God is always with human, his humble. God never lets human lives in an abandon life. But God wants human to live in a life that is perfect, full of peach and prosperous.Therefore, God, the Almighty sends knowledge and understanding like the rain.The knowledge and understanding are wrapped in a package that called education and this education functions to increase the honor of those who receive her(Sirach 1:19).
Education is a part of human life but it is not a product of human. Education is a given; it is a gift from God. God poured this great gift into our hearts because we are his temple.Therefore, we should guard this gift (education) well for it is our lives (read Proverb 4:13b). Why? Because by the knowledge that God gave, we will receive not only honor but we also will know who our God is and so that we would praise him for the miracles he performs (Sirach 38:61).
Education is systematic training and instruction by which human can gain skills and knowledge. The skill and knowledge are useful to develop the capacity and capability in order to enhance the qualities of intellectual, moral, mental power and character.
Education will give us power and authority to manage ourselves, our understanding and skills. By the management of the knowledge, we can have true knowledge that teaches us about the forces of nature, what the world is made of, how the elements behave and the nature of living creatures. And the most important is the education gives the true knowledge of the reasoning power of human beings (read Wisdom of Solomon 7: 11– 20).
Every one of us who lives in this world would not like to live for nothing. We must live for a life that full of dreams; the dream to become someone who is full of love. This lovewill empower us to give benefit for the other people or at least for ourselves.Therefore, we should strive to enrich ourselves with an abundance of a love.
A LOVE
A LOVE is a virtue thatrepresenting all of human kindness, compassion and affection feeling that canmake someone feel better and also can make the others feel happy. Because a love usually brings an abundance richness of all things that are good and that deserve praise; things that are true, noble, right, pure, kind, lovely and honorable (read Philippians 4:8).
A LOVE! It is grateful to have an A LOVE in life for when we have A LOVE we aretherefore, absolutely living a life that measures up to the standard that Godhas set. It is a life that always humble, gentle and patient. This standardof life helps us to show love by tolerant with one another (Ephesians 4:1b-2).
Therefore,once we have a life that meets the standard of God, we will positively become ones who do not only have but also practice a life base on the following qualities:
1. Humble is the quality of being modest opinion of oneself, and respectful.
2. Gentle is a value and quality of one’s character that showing consideration for the feeling of others
3. Patient is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced withlonger-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can take before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast
4. Tolerant is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves such as social, ethnic, sexual, or religious practices.
A LOVE which is described above is really A LOVE, but it is not only A LOVE but also A LOVE that stands for the following:
A Authority form God
L Learn and Grow
O Opportunity
V Valuable to life and humanity
E Excellence
A Authority form God
The first thing we have to do in our lives is to recognize who we are. We are not only a human being, but also the Temple of God. On this Temple, God, the Almighty stores up his Authority or that called Holy Spirit by the Bible.
The Authority from God has its own standard that God himself set it; therefore, as human being, we preserved no right to claim that we are available for that Authority of God. This means, we have no right to claim that we are really someone who has power, capability and capacity to do our works for our better lives.
Well,let us look into our sincere heart, and we will find that there is nothing in us that allows us to claim that we are capable of doing our works. The capacity we have comes from God (read 2Corinthians 3:5). Therefore, there are some steps we should do in order to make us available for the Authority of God:
1.Recognizing ourselves as a humble of God so that he might make us worthy of hisAuthority
2.Finding and empowering ourselves to take out the Authority that God stores up in our minds. The Holy Scripture noted that “A Person’s thoughts are like water in the deep well, but someone with insight can draw them out (Proverb 20:5)
3.Taking and working on the Authority of God or that we call Talent with all our hearts as though we were working it for God and not for men. (Colossian 3:23)
L Learn and Grow
Asa Human being, we were born as the weakest creatures in this world, but we finally grow and become the most important and powerful creatures. Because we have been equipped with brain and this brain contains a power that called Mind.Human’s mind riches of intelligence and this intelligence has reasoning power that empowers human to learn, to learn and to learn.
The Authority of God is stored in us and so we indeed should devote our time, energy and mind to recognize it, to accept it and to work on it. This means, after recognizing the power of God or that called Talent; we may not worry of losing it so we may not go and hide it under a pillow. In contrary, we should do such activities like filling our mind with all things that are good and that deserve praise; things that are true, noble, right,pure, lovely and honorable (read Philippians 4:8).
Learning can make us worthy for the Authority of God, and this authority will empower us so that we can be able to learn all we can; and to remember all we learn and to do what we have learnt. And finally learning will make us clever. A clever person means a person who is rich in knowledge that empowers him for larger capacity. And one who has larger capacity will grow or prosper (Proverb 19:8).This means, a clever person gets easy to grow or to prosper because a clever person does not only think what he knows only but more than that a clever person knows what to do (Proverb 14:8).
How to fill our mind with all things that are good and that deserve praise; things that are true, noble,right, pure, lovely and honorable? We can do it through learning. As an intelligent people, we are always eager and ready to learn (Proverb 18:15). We can learn from anything and from any sources. The Prophet Solomon said “People can learn from the others like the iron can sharpen the iron” This means, we can learn form ourselves; from our lives, form the nature, from the environment.
We can learn from school, from society and from the others. All these are the good sources of learning. From those sources of learning, we can know where understanding,strength and insight are to be found. And please noted that the understanding, the strength and the insight can give us power so that we can know where to find along and full life; where to find light to guide us and where to find peace(Baruch 3:14).
Finally we can conclude that Learning can make you easy to find the Authority that God sets in your heart. This authority produces you knowledge and this knowledge makes you clever and only a clever person has capability and capacity to be certain about what he believes (capacity and capability that he has) and consistent in what he says and committed in what he does (Sirach 5:9). And all we gain in learning is knowledge that makes us rich (Ecclesiastes 5:11b)
O Opportunity
We know that everythingin this world does not happen spontaneously. There is a great thing that makes them happen. As a person who has faith, we believe that it is God who did make all things happen as it is written “everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
God has set the right time for everything. God has set time for birth and the time for death; the time for working or the time for studying and the time for leisure and so forth(Ecclesiastes 3:1 – 12).
This means we exist and we continue to live in this world because of the time God chooses. God gave us opportunity to be born, to live,to work, to get married and to die. God gave us opportunity so that we can do a favor for ourselves.
Therefore, as the young generation, kindly do not waste your time for nothing. You are someone who has the opportunity for future, so do not underrate yourself because you can do something for yourself, your parents and for your country.
However, Evil also comes and brings us his opportunity. Evil provided the opportunity to grow in ignorance.The ignorance makes you stupid and a stupid person is foolish because he onlythinks what he knows (Proverb 14:8b). A foolish person might have big enthusiasmbut enthusiasm without knowledge is not good.
Without knowledge you are notcapable enough to make plan and to do your work properly and therefore, impatientwill get you into trouble (Proverb 20:5).
Evil gave you opportunities to build up life in bad reputation. Person with bad reputation will never be satisfied with all he earns and achieves. His life is devoted for money and he therefore, would love to get rich even if with sinfully chasing after money(Sirach 5:10 & 31:8).
Evil gave you opportunities to do activities of bad lust, and so forth. This opportunity will lead you to have more concerns on worldly matter. You have opportunity to live a life base on your own standard and style; you are free to live in hedonism, to live in free sex, to have drugs and so forth.
The opportunities from evil are the opportunities that God does not require of you. Since you are still immature to know what is right or wrong, you must take the opportunity for education. Education gives you the true knowledge of the reasoning power of human beings (read Wisdom of Solomon 7: 11 – 20). This reasoning power will teach you to know what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, take the education as your life shield in order to guard you against evil (Sirach 4:20). Guard your self with knowledge, skill and good news because evil only comes to kill and to destroy.
You are the backbone of this country and so take your opportunity that God gave and use that opportunity to enrich yourselves by learning what you can learn and then do what you have learnt without any delay. Please do not abandon your life with everything else. But take the advantage of every opportunity to be concerned above everything else with the kingdom of God and with what he requires of you and he will provide you with all these other things (Mathew 6:33).
Valuable to life and humanity
We were born into this world with a purpose that is to live a life that benefits the others and also the Nation.
How to make a life that give value or benefit? We firstly should do something that gives value to ourselves as it was written “do ourselves a favor and learn all we can; then remember and do what we learn and we will prosper (Proverb 19:8). This personal value enables us becoming someone who is valuable through the following:
1. Valuable trough Mind.
All things in this world begin in Mind (Sirach 37:18b). The mind has thought and insight and they are translated into planning. Through the planning, we would design about the prosperity that brings about the future we hope for (Jeremiah29:11). This means, before we are going to do something, we should make a plan first as it is written “Planning and thought lie behind everything that is done(Sirach 37:16)
This means, through our mind we learn that we must live a life that measured up to the standard that God has set for us. In addition, through our mind we also know how to carry the standard out because God himself has given us his authority and opportunity that by which we can work base on the following great designs:
1.Thinking of what great thing (A LOVE) we are going to achieve in life.
2.Designing a plan of how to achieve what (A LOVE) we have thought of
3.Executing our plans base on what we have designed
How and what to do with our planning? The Holy Scripture noted that by planning we can do something carefully then we will have plenty. But if you have no planning, we positively will act too quickly, so we will never have enough(Proverb 21:5). However, after we have settled everything in a good plan, we should come to and ask the Lord to bless all our plans. For only by his blessing, we will be successfully in carrying them out (Proverb 16:3). In addition, we should ask God’s blessing because we sometimes can not act as in accordance with our plan as it is written “you may make your plans, but God directs your actions” (Proverb 16:9)
2. Valuable trough Word.
What should you do when getting up in the morning? I absolutely believe that you would declare “thank you for the morning that brings goodness, joy and great opportunities”. Then, I will say halo and have a nice day for the first person whom I meet. I believe this kind word is powerful to one’s life as it is written “kind words are like honey-sweet to the taste and good for health(Proverb 16:24).” And we know that this kind word is powerful to cheer the life up and destroying any worries that can rob the happiness (Proverb 12:25).
Moreover,I will not miss this day and so I will fill it at least with a simple action“SMILE.” I will not pay for a smile, so I will give smile to everyone I meet and give them good news about the life. And you know that my smile will make you happy and my good news can make you feel better (Proverb 15:30).
3. Valuable trough Action
There are various kinds of work to do in this world. The work of farmer, the work of carpenter, the work of traders, the work of teacher and the work of doctor and scientist and so forth. These works are given base on God’s favor and also base on the Authority that he has poured into every person’s heart.
The above description let us learn that every person has been given a great deal of work to do (Sirach 40:1a) and these works are done for various kind of purposes. However, whatever we do, work on it with all our hearts as though we were working it for God and not for men. (Colossian 3:23). This means it is not the work that is the matter but how to work it, because the work we do, even the least one holds this world together: when we do these works, it is the same as offering prayers, (Sirach 38:34).
Base on the abovedescription, we now understand that when we have good value in Mind, in Words and in Action, we have made ourselves a source of light. This light, therefore,must shine before the people so that they will see the good things we do and they will praise our father in Heaven, (Mathew 5:16). Through this light we can see that all things we do is not for a show and so that all we do will not be wasted. Because this light will shine our path in order to know who is benefiting from the good deed we do (Sirach 12:1).
Excellence
We have the Authority from God, and then we should take time to Learn. In Learning we can find the authority of God and this authority will enlarge our capacity. After we have bigger capacity, we should take a good Opportunity to make our capacity is Valuable. And once we are valuable, we will grow with a character that called Excellence.
Excellence is not an ordinary word only but excellence is a word with power that everyone is dreaming to make it his/her character. Character is the nature that God gave so that human can build their lives base on all things that are good and that deserve praise; things that are true, noble, right, pure, kind, lovely and honorable. One who has this character is called an excellence person and an excellence person is considered valuable.
A valuable person will grow with excellence and with professionalism because an excellence person knows to build his character base on the following pillars of character like that stated by Josephson Institute of Ethics below:
1.Trust worthiness.
A trustworthy person is someone in whom you can place your trust and rest assured that the trust will not be betrayed. A person can prove their trustworthiness by fulfilling an assigned responsibility. Trustworthiness helps us to grow in integrity. It means Trust worthiness makes us certain about what we believe (capacity and capability that we have) and consistent in what we say and committed in what we do (Sirach 5:9)
2.Responsibility.
Responsibility means we are not only have good self-discipline but also we are accountable in doing our works.
3.Respect
Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity (such as a nation or a religion), and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of the one respected (e.g., "I have great respect for her judgment"). It can also be conduct in accord with a specific ethic of respect.
This character is recognized by valuing the others as well as having respect for ourselves.
4.Fairness
Fairness enables you to act in an honest and honorable manner. It also helps you to act in accordance with what is deserved or with rules.
5.Caring
Excellence person has a tender thoughtfulness, sympathy, compassion and love for the others.
6.Citizenship
This character empowers us to have a good sense of responsibility for our selves, our family, our relative and community. This character of citizenship helps to build up our spirit of cooperation and to live in touch close with the others.
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