Taking advantage of God

A teacher has to be very forbearing. When your students are lazy and fail to do their homework, you extend the deadline since you want them to consolidate their learning through doing assignments. When your students are impolite, you maintain your manners and temper because they are only kids and you are adult. When your students are disrupting the learning environment in the classroom, you try to defuse the situation without provoking their emotions because the classroom is not a playground. When you catch your students bullying, you call in the school counsellor because these bullies themselves need help. When you catch your students stealing, you send them to the school social worker, not the police because a school is a learning institute, a place for students to grow up, not a correctional one. When ...
I don't know how much you agree with the way the teacher handles the situations mentioned above. Moreover, I don't know the extent to which the students take advantage of such practices. We don't have any concrete data either to confirm or refute that students benefit from such forbearing policies. After all, a school is supposed to prepare her students for their life in the society in the future and a Catholic school is further expected to show God's love for her students, not to punish them. Don't debate with me whether we should punish students. No debate can solve any problem. Only actions can and actions of Catholic schools should be loving ones.
God is also a teacher. He puts us in this earth to actualize the potentials in us. Our life on earth is a life-long learning process and as a teacher, God takes a forbearing approach.
The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:11-13).
The last two sentences seem contradictory but I will harmonize them this way.
If we deny Jesus, he will deny us on Judgment Day. If we are faithless, Jesus cannot but remains faithful until Judgment Day.
Since God is so forbearing, can we take advantage of Him, like students taking advantage of the forbearance of their teachers?
It seems that we can! After all, doesn't God want all to be saved?
The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
So, we can continue to fool around for the time being and repent when the time comes. Look at our students, they fool around; they play and they date. When the final examination comes, they begin to revise.
But in fact, we cannot! It takes time to build up habits and virtues. When our students start revision before the final examination, they have not yet built up good enough study habits to pass the test. Habits can't be built overnight. Similarly, when we take advantage of God, very soon, our hearts will be so hardened that we will not be able to repent. Our sins are no sins to us. We have grown into self-righteous people who don't need any God.
In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earthenware, and some for noble use, some for ignoble.
If any one purifies himself from what is ignoble, then he will be a vessel for noble use, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work (2 Timothy 2:20-21).
It takes time to purify our ignoble, sinful tendencies. It takes time to learn to love our neighbours as ourselves. It takes even longer time to know God and to love Him. Therefore, just as our students will surely fail their final examination if they fool around to enjoy their youthful age, we will surely fail on Judgment Day if we fool around and take advantage of God's forbearance. Like farmers, we will reap what we have sown. If you don't like the image of farmers, Paul's image of athletes is a vivid alternative.

My Advocate, lazy students we all are. Prod us on to run this life-long race. I pray that by the time we pass the finishing line, we may be awarded the laurel You have prepared for us. Amen.