Passion

I remember thinking many times in my classrooms, "They just aren't excited about learning. They have no passion to understand! If I could just engage them and set them on fire about learning! They don't seem teachable." I'm sure my lessons were somewhat adequate and  interested  some of them, but there were always those that I didn't seem to reach. I found it hard to create curiosity; to create a passion for learning. I'm pretty sure they had a passion for something...could have been video games but it surely wasn't school.

What about our lives? Do we feel passion for the right things? What does a passion for Christ do for us? Have you ever felt it? We could have an ever-increasing hunger to know Him more thereby showing His righteousness as we live our daily lives. We could recognize how He works through our suffering for our growth and our good. We could know all this or we could act like many of our students and feed our passions for something other than the the most important relationship we could  have. As believers, we can model a passion for Christ even in our classrooms and pray that it is contagious; that someone who watches us could want what we have. We could try feeding our students' passions as we grow in ours. Christ is our hope, He is in us, and so we can be hope for someone else.

Be blessed by the Lord and highly favored this season.
Barb

Changing a Stone

Have you ever felt ineffective? Like you can't make a difference no matter what you do or how you say it or how many times you try? Sometimes it feels like what I'm trying to do is comparable to changing a stone.

I love stones. They are in bowls, baskets, piles, plants, and buckets all over my house. I love the colors and patterns; the shapes. And I would never try or want to change any of them. But the other day I was having my quiet time with the Lord in my living room. In front of me on the coffee table sits a bowl of stones from Lake Superior. I picked up 3 of them to hold in my hand while I was praying. They were cold to the touch but I held them for enough time to transfer my body heat to them. I put them down when I was done then remembered someone I had forgotten to pray for so I picked them up again but of course, I couldn't remember which 3 I had originally chosen. As I grabbed them I noticed one of them was cold. I thought, "Wow, these 2 have been changed. They're different. I can even change a stone!"

I immediately thought how we're changed by God. He probably sees us as stones sometimes. His touch is what will change us. But just as the stones in my bowl will grow cold again without my touch, we need God's hand on us continually to keep us in His will, surrendered, and obedient. Staying connected to Him allows us to be the conduit between Him and our students, or family, or this broken world. We really can change stones. Teachers are living proof. With God's help, we do it every day.