The Rules

Last night, I spent a couple of hours with my son (after a Staff Parish Relations Meeting) studying Algebra.  He's having some trouble, so I sat with him, and we studied.

 

He didn't have the book (they have to stay at school, and no, I don't know why), and he had already turned in his study guide (and no, I don't know why).  He did have a "flip chart."  This was a project the teachers had them do.  Each page of the flip chart was another rule for handling exponents in algebra. 

 

The problem was he missed the day the flip charts were made.  He was at the state Latin convention, winning a ribbon for Latin grammar.  Whoever he had gotten the notes from had the answers wrong in his flip chart.

 

Bleh.  So I searched online (what would I do without the internet?) and found some help in remember how to deal with exponents when one solves for X.

 

Work this part first, add these exponents, multiply those, flip these, subtract these.  Do it all in the right order.  It's important to know the rules in math, not for the sake of the rules, but so that we reach the goal for which we are striving -- passing Algebra.  NO, wait, that's not it!  The right answer is the goal

 

God gives us rules, and no one has said that it is not important to know them.  To live by them.  To live by them so that we reach the answer for which we were made -- life in the image of God.  It's hard to accept that God knows what is best.  The rules are not the goal, they are the guideposts to faithful living.  And we can all thank God for grace!