Hard-Headed

by Adam Kronberger / Head of School

Before I transitioned from teaching to full-time Christian school administration, I would spend my 3 months of summer working jobs in the construction industry.  My summer employment not only kept food on the table, but also taught me valuable skills that have stayed with me to this day.   Framing, siding, roofing, concrete, and painting are all trades I have minor experience in doing.  But perhaps the greatest skills learned during those summers helped me to develop into a mature man of God.

On one of the first days on a new job, we were doing a fairly basic concrete pour for a new patio.  My job was simply muscling the wheelbarrow from the concrete truck to the framed patio with fresh “mud”. My boss had handed me a hard hat to wear, but of course I laid it to the side because my “many years of experience” (and fashion sense) knew better.  By about the tenth trip of transporting wet concrete in the wheelbarrow, I failed to duck under the chute on the concrete truck and smacked my skull with a thud.  Within minutes I literally had an egg-sized welt to accompany a splitting headache in my brain ...which soon was wisely sitting under a hard hat for the rest of the pour. 

Pride is a natural part of our sinful human nature and it can often get us into a lot of trouble. But thankfully, pride is not a natural part of the spirit that lives inside of us through Christ Jesus.  The apostle Paul writes, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:11).  This verse describes the process of discipleship training as one matures from a state of selfish pride to one of surrender to the wisdom that comes from above.  

School is such a strategic place for this maturation process to take place.  At each grade level, childish ways of the mind, body, and spirit are identified and corrected and improved. Proverbs makes it clear how the fool thinks they know everything, while wisdom is found in listening to others. But this process can often be a painful process for the student, parent, and teacher.  Just as it took a lump on my head to figure out that I didn’t always know what was best for me, it requires surrendered humility at every stage of our lives to listen, reflect, and change as God desires. 

In John 21, the resurrected Christ instructs his disciples to throw their fishing net on the other side of the boat, despite no success in their prior trip.  Even though they did not recognize him as Jesus, the disciples simply obeyed and reaped the rewards of a net full of fish.  If the disciples can put into practice the wisdom of a stranger, how much more can we surrender to His wisdom as we clearly know Him and know His people. While the occasional “bump on the head” may be necessary, pray that our community of students, teachers, and parents daily make our ears attentive to His wisdom.