When I wrote Teaching: When God Nudges Gently, I was trying to pay attention to patterns. Not lightning bolts. Not neon signs. Just those small interior movements that feel like the Lord quietly adjusting your direction. I had listed a few signposts and wondered out loud whether God might be nudging me back toward teaching in a more intentional way.

After I posted that, I assumed that meant I needed to start moving. Not aggressively. Not ambitiously. But deliberately. I thought perhaps it meant I should begin looking for places to speak again. Maybe I needed to position myself a little more strategically. Maybe I needed to make something happen.

And then I was listening to Dave Ripper talk about how to read Scripture in the spirit of Dallas Willard, and he said something that made me clench my fist in the air and exclaimed, Yes! Finally, I had words to match my feelings.

Teaching is an act of love.

It was the first time I had words for something I had felt for years but never articulated. Teaching, when it is rightly ordered, is not about you. It is not about being impressive. It is not about platform or recognition. It is about willing the good of the other person.

Ripper put it this way:

“Freely we have received God’s love, so naturally, we freely give God’s love to others. Teaching is an opportunity to love our neighbors as ourselves. To love them, as we discovered earlier is to will their good.”

That reframed everything for me. When you teach someone about communion with God, you are not transferring information. You are walking with them. You are helping them along their path, at their stage, in their current relationship with God. You are not trying to showcase what you know. You are trying to help them see what is possible.

And if love is willing the good of the other, then teaching becomes a form of blessing. Dallas Willard defined blessing as willing the good of another under the invocation of God. If that is true, then teaching is not performance. It is an intercession with words. It is a way of saying, I want what is good for you, and I have something that might help.

That realization felt like a gift. Not because it was new information, but because it named something that had been quietly operating in my life.

Just last week I was on a panel at a conference. Afterwards, several people came up to talk. They were grateful. Encouraged. One person told me that of all the sessions they attended, ours was the most entertaining and the one where they learned the most. I smiled at that, but internally I was reflecting on why.

When I teach, I do make small jokes along the way. But they are not random. They usually illustrate the point. And I watch the room. If they laugh, I know they are tracking with me. If they do not, I know I need to recalibrate. The humor is layered. It is diagnostic. It is built on shared experience. I have walked through what many of them have walked through, so when I reference it lightly, they recognize themselves. And that recognition opens them to the answer that follows.

There is something else I need to admit honestly. I have always taught out of passion. I simply love doing it. I love watching someone’s eyes light up when something clicks. I love seeing growth happen in real time. I love being part of that moment in someone’s journey where confusion turns into clarity. If I am honest, that joy is what has always drawn me to teaching. But what I am beginning to see now is that this passion is not separate from love. It is love. The delight I feel in helping someone grow is not self-centered excitement. It is a reflection of wanting their good. I love teaching because I love seeing others strengthened, sharpened, and awakened to something deeper. Being invited into that part of their story is not a performance for me. It is a privilege.

I know that teaching is a gift God has given me. I can see the effect it has. But I also know how dangerous that recognition can be. One of my co-presenters said something that meant more to me than the compliment about being entertaining. She said the best thing about my teaching is that I am humble about it. It is not about me, but everyone can see my passion. That mattered. Because I never want to become arrogant.

I have been invited to speak at this conference for years. People look to me as a subject matter expert. It would be easy to get a big head about that. But I also know I do not know everything. I speak often in rooms full of peers. Other experts. Other people who understand the material deeply. I do not try to pretend I have a corner on the market of knowledge. I simply tell them what I think, why I think it, and how it plays out. And I remain open to learning.

Dallas Willard once said something that stunned his audience. He said, I am probably not the smartest theologian in the room. Imagine hearing that from the man everyone came to hear. That is humility. That is confidence without ego.

Ripper also wrote:

“Preaching from the overflow of God’s love frees us to be able to speak with humility…If the end game of our Christian spiritual formation is to be pervaded with the agape love of Christ, then we must not give our egos room to roam.”

That line landed. If teaching flows from agape love, then ego is not just a character flaw. It is a distortion of the calling. The end game of spiritual formation is not influence. It is being pervaded with the love of Christ. If that love fills the room, humility follows naturally.

Then came the sentence that completely reframed my reaction to the previous blog post. Ripper recounts how Dallas Willard once shared this:

“The Lord said something very simple to me: ‘Never try to find a place to speak, try to have something to say.’”

That stopped me. After my last post, I had quietly assumed that the nudges meant I needed to look for opportunities. But Willard’s line cut through that instinct. Do not try to find a place to speak. Try to have something to say.

For me, that feels like the real sign. The call is not go find a stage. The call is cultivate substance. The call is deepen clarity. The call is let God form something worth saying. That lifts a weight I did not realize I was carrying. I do not have to engineer doors. I do not have to manage impressions. I do not have to hustle for visibility.

Ripper puts it bluntly, ruthlessly eliminate impression management from your life. That is hard to do when you are repeatedly introduced as an expert. It is subtle. It creeps in. You begin to care a little too much about how you are perceived. But if teaching is love, then preparation is love. Study is love. Reflection is love. And trust is love.

Ripper also writes:

“Love your listeners by preparing diligently. But never trust your preparation when you speak. Trust God.”

Prepare diligently. But trust God. That may be the most freeing instruction I have heard in a long time. So perhaps this is the fifth sign. Not an open door yet. Not a calendar invitation. Not a grand announcement. Perhaps the sign is this: work on what you have to say.

• Read. Reflect. Write.
• Continue spiritual formation.
• Let ideas mature.
• Let love deepen.

If there is something God wants me to say, He is more than capable of opening the right door at the right time. My responsibility is not to force it. My responsibility is to be faithful in preparation. Teaching is an act of love. And love does not demand a platform. It simply gives. So I will keep paying attention to the nudges. I will keep cultivating the substance. And when the time comes, if it comes, I trust that the door will open without me having to push it.

Until then, I will prepare.

There is one more layer to this that was not stated directly in what I was listening to, but I suspect Dallas Willard would agree with it. Jesus is the Teacher. I am not. At best I am a conduit. A vessel. If letting Christ live His life through me means anything, it means that He is the one doing the real teaching. He is the one illuminating minds. He is the one shaping hearts. That leaves very little room to boast. If anything good happens, it flows from Him. And if teaching is an act of love, then that love ultimately flows from the agape love of the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Spirit do not compete for glory. They give and receive in perfect communion. If I participate in that life, then whatever teaching flows out of me should carry that same posture.

This is not limited to biblical instruction. Of course it fits naturally there. But what about the workplace? What about training in any field? If Christ truly permeates all of life, then even teaching anatomy to medical students can be done out of love. You prepare them well not merely to pass an exam but to serve future patients faithfully. You shape competence because competence becomes compassion in action. In that sense, every arena of instruction can become sacred space. Christ is present there too. And if He is the true Teacher, then all our training, whether in Scripture or surgery, can be offered as participation in His life, carried by love and directed toward the good of others.

If you are curious what stirred all of this reflection, the audiobook was Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus, Reading the Bible like Dallas Willard by Dave Ripper. I would genuinely recommend it. It is not only a thoughtful guide to engaging Scripture as a disciple, but also a clear and accessible doorway into Dallas Willard’s vision of spiritual formation. If you have ever wanted a primer on how Willard understood transformation, love, humility, and participation in the life of Christ, this is a beautiful place to begin.

Excerpt

What if teaching is not about platform or passion, but love? I am learning that the call is not to find a place to speak, but to have something to say. Preparation is faithfulness. Christ is the true Teacher. I am simply invited to participate.

There and Back Again, Somehow