Our Future Hope

BY Kimberly Davis

What comes to mind when you think of a kindergarten classroom? You may visualize the brightness of a room with posters of shapes and numbers or colorful rugs filled with alphabets for circle time, but the word challenging may not be your first thought. 

While my time in the kindergarten classroom was one of the sweetest seasons as a teacher, the first two months of the school year were challenging. The thing about kindergarten is that you have the privilege of being the first encounter some children have with formal education. I was responsible for pouring into them and preparing them for first grade. That usually meant spending the first two months of school uncovering each child’s learning style and finding the academic treasure they held inside. 

No matter what we faced in our classroom community, I knew my students’ love of learning would be connected to how I allowed them to experience kindergarten. And regardless of how tough a time we had in the first two months getting acclimated with one another, the hope I held for their future allowed me to see past those challenges and treasure them—to teach from a place of love and the possibility of what was to come mid-year. When I could shift my thinking to focusing on the future, both for my kids and our classroom environment, I could see the purpose of our momentary troubles. 

Second Corinthians 4:7–18 encourages us in a similar way. We are clay jars filled with treasure, but our fragility does not stop God from using us. We do not have to dwell on our weaknesses because we can trust in His power, which is sufficient no matter what we face.

God calls us to focus on our future hope, even in the midst of our current challenges. The assurance of His presence gives us courage to know that, whether we face persecution or joy in the classroom of life, we can respond with gratitude to both because our greatest reward is in heaven where He prepares a place for us. 

If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. —John 14:3 

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Our hope comes from the holy expectation of spending eternity with Him. And as we learn to focus on Him, we see that He is the one who sustains us— His treasured jars of clay.