When I was in the third grade in primary school, I was always trying my hardest to take first place whenever it came to academic performance. I was the class monitor for each of my classes and my teacher’s “right-hand” girl. My teachers paid me lots of attention while my classmates envied me. The semester was going ahead smoothly as I always achieved the highest scores, until one day a transfer student came into our class. From that moment on, everything changed.

It was a rainy day, and I remember clearly that there was a lot of mud on his shoes. His hair was dripping wet and disheveled when he came into the classroom, which immediately left a bad impression on me. I didn’t like him because his clothes were always soiled, and much to my surprise, the teacher assigned him to sit next to me. I certainly didn’t welcome him on my own initiative, and soon he looked at me and said “hello” with a big smile, telling me that his name was Feng. I soon discovered that Feng was smart, and furthermore, he was always kind and joyful. Even though his clothes were always dirty, my classmates enjoyed gathering around him to listen to his stories, and before long, I became extremely jealous. He always seemed to have the right answers for everything. 

After some time, when my classmates would ask me a question, I always said enigmatically, “Why don’t you ask Feng because he knows everything. I have other things to keep me busy.” I knew that I was angry during that period and I really didn’t mean the words I said. But my attitude gradually isolated me from my classmates, as fewer and fewer asked me to play with them.

At first, Feng didn’t pay much attention to my attitude towards him, but then I became increasingly unkind to him. He asked me why I held a lot of prejudice against him, and I told him that our classmates’ adoration of him was making him too arrogant. We had a fierce quarrel out on the playground, and we made a bet as to who could get the first place on the final exam–the one who lost would apologize to the other, and it would have to be in front of all our classmates.

We didn’t speak after I made the bet with him. During the following days, I listened more carefully in my classes so that I could be sure to win the bet. Time flew by and I completed the final exam easily. I wasn’t concerned until I noticed that Feng also seemed satisfied with his performance. Because I made great efforts, the final grade was very important to me. This made me very nervous, so much so that my legs trembled when the teacher began to announce the results.

Soon, the teacher announced the top score, and it was Feng. Tears began to flow uncontrollably down my face. The whole class became quiet, and then I stood up slowly with my head down and told Feng that I was sorry for my pride, thinking that I was smarter than he was. Even though my voice was breaking with each word, I also apologized to all my classmates. They immediately surrounded me to comfort me, including Feng. Feng said that he felt that I was actually a better student than he was, but that I should learn to be more tolerant of others. And, he also said that he never took the bet seriously. After he said that, I realized that I really didn’t need to apologize to Feng, nor to all my classmates. Alas, I could have saved face!

However, my “unnecessary” apology to Feng and to all my classmates is a precious treasure in my life. It made me grow up and taught me how to accept others. For one thing, there is always another person smarter than you are, and this should motivate us to be better rather than make us jealous. I became more modest and tolerant after this experience, and also learned to genuinely appreciate others’ strengths and clap my hands for others’ success.

This also taught me to never pre-judge others, and actually, not to judge others at all. Not passing judgment on others will help prevent us from being blinded by prejudice, strengthen our own self-awareness, and give us more opportunity to communicate with others. Just as a book, to really understand a person we must always look beyond the cover. And I learned one more thing. I needed to enjoy the process rather than being too obsessed with the result.

Finally, this experience had the most unexpected result in that Feng and I became very good friends. Furthermore, I became more relaxed and easy-going, which made my primary school life so much more enjoyable.

Additional Comments – My former student noted the most obvious blessings of her experience in that she learned to not be blinded by prejudice nor to judge others. Learning to remove prejudice from our lives and to never judge others (as Jesus commanded us) are invaluable lessons for all of us to learn. And she got some bonus results also, in that she became more self-aware and began to communicate more with her classmates.

But the most important thing to understand is the root cause of all these blessings that she received. None of this would have happened without her losing the bet and taking it upon herself to apologize for her prideful behavior. Her loss resulted in unimaginable blessings, just as it can do for each one of us. Even though she believed it was necessary to apologize as a result of her losing the “bet,” her sorrow was quite genuine, and her sincerity was an important element of her apology. She said she was “sorry,” and although unspoken, her sorrow carried with it an unspoken request for forgiveness. 

Jesus told the story about two men who went to the Temple to pray. One of them was super-religious, and he made sure that God was aware of just how good he was. He wanted God to know how proud He should be that he was one of the star players of His team. But the other guy, a despised tax-collector for the Romans, was so ashamed of his life that he could not even look toward heaven, but beat his chest proclaiming, “God, be merciful to me the sinner.” In the original Greek text, he used definite article “the sinner,” and not the indefinite article “a sinner.” No, he saw himself not as just “any ordinary sinner,” but as the “ultimate sinner,” one who had offended God and used others for his own benefit. And Jesus concluded His story by saying that it was the tax collector who left the Temple and went down to his house in a right relationship with God, and not the Pharisee (Lk. 18:9-14).

Simple? Did my student find it “simple” to stand in front of her class and apologize? Of course not! And neither is it simple for any of us to stand before God and confess our sins to Him. But if we are going to find new life and come into a relationship with God, it must be done. If you have never done it, why wait any longer? Go ahead, He’s waiting to hear from you, and He will forgive and accept you with open arms!