I’m Evan Livingston, and this is how I’m living deeply.  

“My fifth-grade students were hiding in the corner of the classroom. I was crouched down closest to the door. Sounds more suspenseful than it was- that’s just what you do during a lockdown drill! But the conversation during those few moments in October wasn’t anything I’d expected. The horrific thought of reacting to a real emergency someday sparked nervous questions among the kids: ‘Are you prepared to die?’, or something along those lines. I told them, ‘I would be scared to be in that situation, but I know where I’ll be going, and I’ll be going to Heaven.’ A couple students were like, ‘Whoa- he just said that!’ Maybe they weren’t used to teachers being brutally honest, I don’t know. They wanted to keep going and were asking more questions, but it was the end of the day. We had to wrap it up. Still, what a cool moment that’s really set the tone for this whole year! I teach at Mooreland Heights Elementary, a little bit south of UT across the bridge. It’s very diverse. About half of the kids in my class are students of color and the other half are white. So you have a really crazy melting pot. A lot of my students experience financial issues and have single parent homes. Many have parents in and out of the prison system. They see all kinds of things that really expedite their childhoods. I feel like they act older than what I would imagine for a typical fifth-grader. They have a hunger and thirst for understanding how the world works. Some of them want to get it from secondary sources like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok- whatever social media is on their phones or screens at home. Others, though, really like getting it from people. They just really look toward other mentors outside of their home and want to see how the world works from an outsider’s perspective. I’ve gotten a really cool kick out of that because I’ve never talked about Jesus this much in any classroom. I tell them how the Lord is gracious and kind but that He still has expectations for us and that I have expectations for them.

 What’s really changed my heart the most and prepared me for some of these unplanned, unscripted ‘mentor moments’ was something James Forsyth said as we went through the ‘I Am’ sermon series at CSPC in January. He was talking about how, when he and Rosie have arguments, he tries to imagine Jesus sitting in the other chair. That has stuck with me when I’m working with different students. I may feel my frustration rising because they want to be disobedient or ignore all the things I’m saying and just do their own thing. But if I can see Jesus in their chairs, I can show them the love of Jesus. That’s really changed how I react. I’m more patient with them. Without getting into details, one student recently misbehaved and asked me, ‘I don’t get it. Why are you giving me a second chance?’ And I told him, ‘Well, I believe in a God who gives second chances.’ He doesn’t believe in God right now, but he felt all the emotion and weight of my response. You could see he was stunned and grappling with the idea of, ‘Man, this guy’s really serious about it.’ Two other students were part of this incident, and we just did a group hug and this young man was perfect the rest of the week. Obviously sin still exists, so he was throwing more challenges my way the next week, but the gravity and frequency of his misbehavior has gone down. It just drives home for me the fact that the most powerful thing these students can get from me this year is the light of Jesus. And even if they don’t accept Jesus within the time I’m working with them, knowing God is making change in this classroom is the most important thing to me. Over half the students haven’t heard the Gospel story, so they’ll ask me a lot of questions. I was teaching how to add fractions recently, and somehow that provoked one student’s curiosity. She says, ‘I remember y’all talked about Jesus in October. How did He take in all the sin if he was like, God? That was what you said and I’m still thinking about it. Like, how did he take sin and stuff when He died?’ And I was like, ‘Well, that’s a really good question that I did not think about when I was in fifth grade.’

 From there I was able to briefly go into the conversation of how Jesus was fully God and also fully man. So even though He didn’t sin, He took on your sin. He took my sin. All of the sin has been paid for. And then they were like, ‘Well, if He died and took on sin, how did He go to heaven?’ They didn’t want to talk about fractions anymore, and I was able to share the mystery of the Gospel. They responded, ‘That’s just so cool, but I don’t think I get that.’ And I was like, ‘That’s okay, but if you ever have questions, just let me know.’ That’s led to much more open conversation, especially one on one at recess. They just love to ask questions about the Lord. Despite all that’s going on around them, they’re still open to the idea of a God who loves them. At least a couple of them do appear to know the Lord. One student recently told me she and her dad are going to get baptized. It felt like that came out of nowhere, but I could also see how the Lord was changing her heart because she’s really kind in class and is a very steady voice for her friends. So that’s really cool. It reminded me why God has me here: not only to teach school subjects, but to show them you can have all the money or fame or whatever you crave most in this world, and it’s not going to fill your heart. The only One who can do that is Jesus. Even if you’re a terrible student or a terrible brother or sister, Christ welcomes you into His kingdom. At the end of the year, there will be performance evaluations and everything of how I am as a teacher. But the most valuable thing I can take with me from this experience is knowing I’ve showed every student in that room Jesus. And hopefully, they come to accept Him or at least are thinking about it, grappling with the Good News He proclaims, beyond my time as their teacher.” 

 NOTE: Evan will share from another part of his life as he continues his Live Deeply story next week.