Seeking First the Kingdom
A story about anxiety, peer pressure, and friendship.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” - Matthew 6:33 (EHV)
Luke suddenly awoke in the middle of the calm night. Nothing could be heard, not even the regular barking of the neighbor’s dog, nor the soft hum of air that flowed out of the heater in his room. From his bed, Luke could see the luminosity of the moon and the brilliant twinkling lights of the celestial bodies that seemed to hang with their tranquility in his window. Luke sat up and froze in panic. Tomorrow, his speech for English class was due – and he was set to give his speech first. Ignoring the serenity of the silent night, he jumped out of bed with his feet hitting the soft carpet floor of his bedroom. Rubbing his eyes, he peered at the blocky numbers of the electronic display on the face of his alarm clock. To his relief, the clock read 5:37 AM in large, pulsing blue numbers. He luckily had slept longer than he thought, but to his dismay, it was unlikely that he would be returning to his bed before sunrise. Luke flicked on the lights in his bedroom. Running his fingers along the edge of his desk, he bumped his well-worn, leather-backed Bible and sent it spiraling to the floor. Shooting out his arms, he quickly retrieved it before it noisily crashed onto the ground. His heart pounded quickly – the last thing he needed was to arouse his parents who would surely not sympathize with his predicament.
Setting the book back on the table, he moved over to his school laptop. Opening the lid, he firmly pressed the power button, sending the machine whirring to life. The screen flickered on, showing off its monochrome power sequence. While waiting nervously, Luke grabbed his phone off the charger in the corner of his desk. Swiping to unlock the device, he encountered a pile of notifications on the home screen. Ignoring all the notifications of missed calls that were probably from scammers or telemarketers wishing to sell him useless merchandise, he dug through and noticed a message from his friend, Sam, who had been going through troublesome changes in attitude. Luke didn’t blame him for wanting to be popular, but not only did he think of it as being vain – he realized that it hadn’t been a good thing for his friend. Sam had been attending parties – plural, in fact, a lot of parties. And while he wasn’t necessarily participating in any immoral behavior at such events, he was blindly exposing himself to the ugliness of the popular kid’s behaviors while thinking he was having fun. He seemed to never have enough and complained of being tired constantly. Luke opened the text which read, “Hey Luke, I feel like our friendship hasn’t been so strong lately. Tonight, things got out of hand at a party at Jake’s house, and I nearly got hurt. I’m not sure if these people are my friends, I’m not sure if they are anyone’s.” Luke sympathetically gazed at his phone screen and then glanced back over to his desk. Luke rested his eyes on the Bible on his table. He knew just what to write his speech about.
Luke woke up again at 7:30 AM, being more fully rested and less stressed and anxious. While he only got a bit over an hour more of sleep, he certainly felt calmer now that his speech was ready. All he had to do was print it out. The sun was steadily rising, which made Luke feel all the better. Today was going to be a good day. He peered out his window where he saw the refreshing aura of a beautiful autumn day. The leaves drifted quietly, whispering as they swept around the corners of the house with the quiet chirping of birds being heard from afar and the sounds of an awakening world making a harmonious symphony of life. Luke turned to the sounds of bustling in the kitchen as the branches of the trees danced outside his window, and after printing his speech, closed the door and left his empty room.
Luke later arrived at his school and heard the inviting noises of chattering as he made his way through the busy cafeteria of students who were eating breakfast. Anxiety set in as he realized that English was not his first class of the day. Luke slunk into math class like a disappointed cat. He usually loved math, but today, he was more concerned about English class and found it difficult to focus on the lesson – he would figure it out later. Finally, Luke made his way into the English classroom. Some of his classmates were sitting at their desks. His eyes glanced back to where Sam usually sat with the popular kids in his English class. Their desks, as usual, were empty. The bell rang and with it came the rowdy popular kids making strange snorting noises as they entered the classroom with Sam silently following. Luke shot him an encouraging look, but Sam appeared to be unphased. The teacher scolded them for being late and ordered them to return to their seats. Then, calling the class to order, she asked them to prepare to listen to their classmates’ speeches and take notes on each one of them. His classmates groaned. For once, Luke was excited to go first because that meant he didn’t have to start taking notes right away.
His English teacher then ushered him to the front of the room, and Luke began to give his speech. A few minutes later, Luke ended his speech with a Bible verse from Matthew 6:33 to urge his classmates to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” in all that they do because God will provide to them everything else that they need in this life. Some of his classmates applauded and most smiled as Luke ended his speech, but the popular kids in the back dissented from the rest of the group and snickered. “If God loves him so much, why is he such a loser,” one of them mocked. “Yeah, Bible-boy, why don’t you just save the Bible for yourself so that we don’t have to listen to its boring words,” another one taunted. Luke felt disappointed and partially ashamed, but that’s when he heard the voice of his friend, Sam, who was now standing. “Is that how you treat God’s Word – with contempt! Don’t you understand how wonderful Luke’s speech was?” Sam raised his voice, “In fact, it made things clear to me that you guys are not my friends, and I am no longer your friend. I’m done!” The teacher intervened and asked Sam to calm down and sent the kids who taunted and mocked Luke to the principal’s office.
Later that day at lunch, Sam sat by Luke. The two were back to their old ways, telling funny stories and giggling at each other’s jokes. They were back to being friends again. Luke looked over to the school office and saw the scowling faces of the people who picked on him and his speech during English class. They had to spend the rest of the day there and had to serve detention after school. Luke looked over to Sam, “I am so grateful that you are my best friend.” Sam looked back at Luke, “No, I am a terrible friend and even more grateful for your friendship.” Luke sighed, “Actually, I saw the message you sent and that is what prompted me to write the speech I gave today at 5:30 this morning.” He giggled, “I had no idea what I was going to write about, so you’re the even better friend who saved me from getting a late assignment and gave me the best idea to write a speech about.” The two friends laughed away at Luke’s statement and continued to be close friends for the rest of their lives.
Author’s Note: This is a fairly long story, so I hope you don’t mind reading it. While Luke’s situation doesn’t reflect my homeschool background, his predicament is, personally, very relatable with my experiences while enrolled at public school. While at public school, I often had moments of panic about not getting late assignments, which in a way, paid off because I hardly ever turned anything in late. Even then, while I was a homeschooled student, there was a bit of panic concerning getting everything done on time before the end of the school year and I sometimes got behind (which was usually, partially my fault). In a way, it also resembles the way I sometimes felt as a Christian attending a public school. Speaking in front of the class was not my favorite thing to do (in fact, probably my least favorite thing), and I was underconfident in talking about myself and my beliefs. While my classmates weren’t as vocal as the students in this story, they still silently laughed, which wasn’t very encouraging. This story touches on the quite relevant themes of worrying about schoolwork, peer pressure, being accepted, being loved, helping friends, and having good friends. The ultimate solution is Jesus, who doesn’t scorn us about what we’ve done wrong, who doesn’t pressure us to sin, who loves and accepts us as we are – a truly good friend. May God always help us to seek him first and bless us with good Christian family and friends.