Just. Let’s examine the definitions available for this four-letter word.

1. Adjective: based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair (equitable)
2. Adjective: deserved or appropriate in the circumstances (deserved)
3. Adjective: well founded; justifiable (valid)
4. Adverb: exactly (precisely)
5. Adverb: very recently
6. Adverb: barely (narrowly)
7. Adverb: simply; only; no more than (merely)
8. Adverb: possibly
9. Adverb: used as a polite formula for giving permission or making a request

It just (8) might be just (1) to just (9) allow just (4) the right punishment to be truly just (2).

I just…

Number seven is the version of just which can flip a switch in my heart, mind, and spirit quickly.

I just go to school part-time.

I’m just working part-time.

I’m just going to community college.

I’m just getting my basics.

I’m just here.

Can you imagine saying, I merely go to school part-time. I am merely going to community college.

Even the use of the word “just” is increasing (check out the coolest thing ever! Google’s Ngram Viewer. It shows you word usage in a chart! https://books.google.com/ngrams). I am sure in part to the increased dialogue on just punishments, but from my seat at the table, the word is being used to simplify and undervalue personal victories. It may not seem to have a big impact, but hear the difference.

Dropping one word makes an impact

I go to school part-time.

I’m working part time.

I’m going to community college.

I’m getting my basics.

I’m here.

The addition of the word “just” hedges the speaker from any form of judgment they perceive others to potentially shed on the actions of their lives.

Oh you are just going to school part-time, how lazy.

Just working part-time? Who is paying your bills?

Hedge Statements

This list continues, but in taking out “just” those hedged statements turn from defensive to factual. You are going to school. You are here. You are getting your basics. All of those completely valid components of your life. For my students, I hear student after student hide behind the word “just” in their own introductions of themselves. Everyone loves the first day of class syllabus review and the “let’s say our names, our degree plan, and a fun fact” round robin, right? It breaks the awkward first day of school silence.

When teaching basic public speaking, the first day of class we skip the round robin introductions and instead employ a double-duty assignment. The students partner up and interview each other with an agreed upon list of questions we crowd sourced as a class. The goals being to get to know our audience better for future speeches and to rip off the give a speech band aid in the first week. The interview questions can range depending upon the class but include your typical probes: name, high school, family, where are you from. Some classes add extra flair to their interview protocol: taco v. pizza; basketball v. football; who would you like to wrestle.

Our worst critique…is us.

As I sit and listen to the room move from awkward silence to a sputtering start to a low and steady rumble, I hear people describe their lives and preferences. As they answer simple questions, their voices carry a burden of being just not enough. Those phrases from earlier riddle the classroom on day one. “Do you work?” one student will ask, “I do, but it’s just part-time.” Walking through the aisle another student will ask, “What are you going to school for?” and the responding student’s voice quietly answers, “just my basics, you know my gen ed classes. I don’t know what I want to do.” In between questions, nervous laughter fills the silence as each student takes notes on their interview with, as I tell them, their new best friend.

The second day of class comes and from time-to-time, we will be a few bodies short. People decide to drop the class and leave their new friend in a lurch. Those individuals are allowed to go last and mentally prepare to introduce themselves. As class begins, each pair walks to the front of the room and introduces one another. A magical thing happens – the word “just” was not included in the notes and is not included in the words spoken by their new friend.

Instead, each person is introduced with factual statements: “She goes to school full-time, working on her basics and is working part-time.” Then, as if to counter the doubt of the class prior, students add statements of encouragement: “He works full-time and takes classes part-time before work – that takes some major dedication.” Our students (and let’s be real, us too) stop short of the great work they are doing from the first day. How can we expect great work in the exhausted trenches of week 14 of 16 without addressing their self-deprecation and doubt?

It’s “just” not enough

A student came to my office for advising last week. He isn’t on my “official” list, but the word on the street says my office is a place to find answers and help so he landed in the chair across from my desk. As I do with all students during the advising process, I asked him where we were heading (educationally and occupationally) and where we started. Here is where his list started – his list of why his GPA, timeline, and plans were not good enough. He told me his GPA was bad because of some classes he took in high school and wasn’t mature enough to handle yet (his bad GPA was still honor grad level). He told me he was graduating with his Associates of Arts degree “late” because he was too unprepared to handle the responsibilities of college and took a gap year. He told me because of his gap year, he wasn’t going to walk across the stage at graduation because he should have already finished. He told me his plans weren’t set in stone because he just didn’t think he was good enough for the dream plan. The conversation was riddled with false rules he created for what his life. In Jon Acuff’s best-selling book, Finish, he discusses these as secret rules – hidden guidelines we have taken to believe and live by with no foundation. For this student, he was comparing to the story of someone else, or the dream he had for himself, instead of the life he was personally living today. Could he have stuck with school and graduated on “time”? Does that change his victory in graduating now? No! Do 2 average (I won’t even call them bad) grades in your first semester doom you from pursuing your dream path? No! My grades just aren’t good enough and I just didn’t graduate fast enough are stealing his joy and putting doubt in the driver’s seat.

Sufficient.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Each student sitting in your classroom is God’s handiwork, whether they understand that truth or not, created to do good works and prepared for in advance. With their time, efforts, and energies in our classrooms, we cannot know what our students are being prepared for, but it is for something. They are experiencing training, and we are their teachers! If during the first week of class you hear your students using the “nothing but” or “no more than” version of just to describe their current victories. Stop them. Graciously and lovingly, but stop them. Remind them school is temporary. Balancing life, work, and school is challenging but, not forever. Remind them this journey uniquely meets their needs, regardless if they understand them yet. Show them love by loving where they are right in this moment for them until they can do it for themselves.

Just a Carpenter

In the NIV translation of Mark 6:2 people reference to Jesus as “just a carpenter” in the same verse in KJV, those people are described as being “offended” by Jesus based upon his humble beginnings. In the Jesus-Centered Bible, the editors pose the question, what profession would Jesus have in today’s world? Whoa, there is a thinker. It would be a profession people don’t expect to find wisdom, and anyone who appears to have wisdom would be offensive and not honored. When describing the advise shared it would be hedged by the statement… “Oh that guy, he says (fill in the advice), but he’s just a (fill in the profession).” I am not sure exactly what that profession is, but I would bet several of our students would be quick to name their own chosen line of work. The world needs all of us to build a strong kingdom – in a doctor’s office, a welding shop, an accounting desk, a maintenance truck, at the lunch table, in biology class, in…well, wherever you are sitting.

Just give them you.

Teachers, just give you… and people may think I am referring to the seventh definition of just: to simply or to only give you to your students. Everyone knows that you don’t “simply or only give yourself to your students.” What that asks is messy, complicated, intense, and beautiful. But instead, just give you, refers to the forth option… exactly… to give exactly you to your students. Not “teacher you,” not “church you,” not “small group leader you…” My hope is you give your students exactly and precisely you because God intended it to be that simple.

Just give them you.

Check out this article from when I almost quit teaching.