Does God Hate Comma Splices?

I was furious at some of my students today. Absolutely furious. While checking essays on a Sunday afternoon (something I loathe), I physically wanted to shake something. Anything. As it was too early for a relaxing beverage, I had to leave the table, exhausted and angry, and go do something else. I got out several knives and stabbed pumpkins for the next two hours.

Paper after paper, I read the same mistakes. Often that might mean that there's a hole in my teaching, that there's an area that I've got to cover before students write their next essay. That I can live with. This, however, was much different. During the essay writing process I gave the students a list of common word choice errors. The list included words that absolutely under no circumstances should be used in a paper. We went over the list and the reasoning for it for two days. I didn't stop there. During revision activities in class, students had to search for these errors in their own essays and in the essays of others. That was another three days of class. After all of that, in essay after essay I had students blatantly ignore the words I spoke to them, the notes I gave to them, and the lessons I had them participate in. Many papers are splattered with the very errors I worked so hard to emphasize, the ones I told them would cost them up to two letter grades on their final score. Righteous anger boiled at my dining room table.

By some act of grace, I later got a little perspective. I am who my students are, just on a much larger stage with a much more important grade to get. They (somewhat) enthusiastically take in my words, my notes, and my lessons, then later ignore them when it matters. How is that any different than my recurring habit of studying and nodding in agreement to God's words, his Biblical directions, and the sermons/conferences/books I engage in, then casually ignoring them in my quest for the good life?

Tomorrow when some of my students get their essays back and ask if they can rewrite them for a better grade, I'll tell them no. I've got no mercy for this kind of behavior, this kind of effort. No extra credit. No re-writes. Just do better next time. Learn your lesson. God also isn't going to let me go back and re-do any parts of my life that I've failed at miserably because I didn't pay attention to his notes. I've got to live with those errors, those sins, those times of missed opportunity for great adventure and great joy. I can't gain extra credit from my church attendance.

But his mercy runs much greater than mine as a teacher. He's willing to forget my errors. He was even willing to pay for them. I'm sure he despises my sin at a much greater level than I despise blatant pronoun abuses, but he's constantly offering lessons for me to get it right.

My students will wish for me to be a little more Christ-like tomorrow. But they're just going to have to live with the fact that I have a much nicer teacher than they do.