Studying for her teaching license, with four babies at home and a very job-focused husband, was no easy feat. Afterward, there was an out-of-state move, then three years of substitute teaching, before she finally, probably more by kindness, landed a full-time position, teaching 10th grade language arts.
Before she started the school-year, her husband and children followed her to her new-to-her trailer classroom, where, by the leading of her husband, they christened the space with prayer and excitement. This, was the proper way, she realized later in retrospect, to welcome the actualization of God’s promises and goals into the world. This was the wise men’s way.
When a promise or goal from God manifests, it gets attention in one way or another: either good or bad. There will be some who take the promise appropriately, and celebrate, and humble themselves before God’s greatness and his successfully bringing one of his promises into the world. They will ask God to protect the promise, and provide all that is needed for the promise to be sustained. They will ask God for help to handle the promise appropriately. They will celebrate with the person whom the promise is coming to pass for.
But then, there will be others, who like Herod, will fear the promise, and fear the possible power and attention being taken away from themselves, and will seek to destroy the promise. They will writhe in jealousy. They will privately nitpick, to others around them, about how the person getting the promise is undeserving. They will lay-in-wait and watch from a distance, hoping that they will see the person with the promise screw it all up.
A few months later, when she almost lost her position due to a rash moment with a student, in which her temper got the better of her mouth, her husband prayed with her and then helped her to seek the advice, of a fellow teacher, in how to handle the recovery of her reputation. After three days of due process, and much doubting on her own part, she was restored into her classroom and continued to teach. Again, she was the recipient of the wise men’s ways, and God’s promises and goals for her life would be sustained.
Sara Oyela 