What My Calculus Professor Taught Me About God

This school semester has been characterized by my struggles with calculus and my calculus professor's struggle to teach us well. I will admit that it is probably the most challenging course I've ever attempted, and I've spent most of my semester trying to stay afloat.

But as the semester comes to an end, I had a moment to look back and reflect on how I got to where I am.

Whenever he introduced a new concept, our professor would always teach us the long, hard way. Those who had been in calculus before remembered a shortcut, but he refused to teach it to us until we had mastered (and been tested on) the long way. I could never figure out what exactly we were going to do with the second derivative or definite integrals, but he was teaching so I was trying to learn.

So I agonized for hours over these tedious problems, afraid that I would never be prepared for the imminent test. I didn't think I could learn the concept in time to test on it.

But by the test review and quiz day, somehow I had a grasp on the material, enough to pass the quiz and the test. When we revisited the same concept later in a much more complex context, it was almost second nature to me. And when we learned the shortcut, I appreciated it so much more because I understood what it was doing.

I think that, to an extent, God does the same thing with us. We have no idea what is up ahead, only that there is hard stuff right in front of us. It looks incredibly difficult, and we barely have enough resources to tackle it.

But, once we finally crest the hill, we find another obstacle, even bigger than the first. In despair we complain about all the uphill work, but we push onward. When we're finally on top of that hill, we look back and realize that, if we hadn't worked hard to climb the first slope, we would have been too inexperienced to climb the second incline.

Then we recognize that God brought us through the first obstacle, which was so hard at the time but now looks easy, so that we would learn to trust Him when we reach an even bigger one.

*This is not at all to compare my calculus professor to God. I wouldn't do that.

But I want to draw an analogy: My professor, although it often didn't seem like it at the time, had a plan to guide us through Calculus I. He might give us a hint as to what was coming up, but most of the time, all we knew was that there was a test coming up and we had to be ready. And he never showed us the shortcut until we had mastered the hard way.

Same with God. He has a plan that we can't see, and He only shows us enough for us to take our next step; and sometimes not even then. He doesn't give us an easy way out because that won't grow us. But He tells us enough that we'll be prepared for the test.

The biggest difference, however (besides the fact that God is God and my professor is not) is that God walks with us through the trials. He promises us that He will not allow us to be tested more than we can handle:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10.13)

 So, not unlike my calculus professor, God has the entire "syllabus" planned out, but He's only going to take us through it one day at a time.