Grab Hold of Direction for Your Life
I had to get up like normal people yesterday morning and be at work by 8:15. Usually I’m heading out the door at 11:30, to work part time at the Christian school. Can I just say that you people who work full time are super heroes. I felt a little whiny that I was showered and dressed before 11:00.
It was the annual 8th-grade breakfast, where all of the high school teachers introduce themselves and described their classes. This is done before the students register for their freshman year.
I talked about my Spanish class and made sure to tell them I have a drawer full of candy.
Bribery. I have no shame.
But I also told them why they should care about learning Spanish and what my goal is for them in my class –that by the end of my program they be able to create thousands of simple sentences in Spanish.
This is what teachers do.
We plan way ahead and decide what students need to learn. Then we come back and escort them there.
So I’m used to thinking like that –articulating goals and figuring out how to get there. Because if it were up to students, they would come into class, plop themselves down in the chairs, and beg to watch movies every day. They just want to be happy and not working in that moment. I have to know where we are going so we can stay on track.
My question for you is this –how much thought do you put into your life and where you are going?
Consider the people of faith in Hebrews 11:13-16 (NIV):
They were longing for a better country –a heavenly one.
Every choice they made in a day was based on the fact that they were only visiting on earth. Passing through.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.
They looked to the distant future to decide how to live in this day.
In a few weeks it will have been one year since my dad went to be with the Lord. I start to be overwhelmed by grief, even after all this time, but then I think, No, I’m right behind him. My journey through grief has been shaped by my belief that this life is temporary and heaven is coming up fast.
Do you think far ahead?
Do you know where you are going?
Do you let your faith in the long-range destination shape what your actions and emotions of today look like?
Pretend you have to stand in front of a room of people and articulate what your life is being lived for. And you have been allotted three minutes to speak.
Go.
I think I have it: to daily, lovingly, obediently yield to God’s transforming cleansing, renewing, and strengthening power, recreating Christ’s image in me for His honor and His glory, for my joy and delight! (Hallowed be His Name! Sort of “chief end of man…” Blessings upon your day, faithful, encouraging one! I am grateful to the Lord for you!
Christy, I do enjoy your “assignment” here, w the three minute cut-off! Marvelously poignant and succinct! Though-provoking for a former English-school marm, challenging former students to “completely cover topic thoughtfully, logically..and do not be wordy!” I am practicing the assignment!