The Day After

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving you see them. No, not the early Christmas decorations, you will see the "Today I am thankful for..." posts. There is nothing wrong with that and, in fact, I have made them before. Having a day set aside specifically for thankfulness is a great idea, My question is this, "What about today?" Are you still thankful on Friday? "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." Those are the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:18. It seems clear that we are to be thankful, not just a few weeks in November, but all of the time. It also says to be thankful "In every thing..." A lot of people are thankful for things, but what about in things? Being thankful for things isn't inherently bad, I am thankful for a lot things: family, friends, a job I love, my students, etc... Being thankful for things is easy, being thankful in every thing is a different story. Being thankful in things means your current circumstances shouldn't affect your level of thankfulness. When your car won't start and you are running late, you are to be thankful. When your team loses, you are to be thankful. When you are facing your first holiday without a loved one, you are to be thankful. We are to be thankful in the hard times too. Now, being thankful in every thing is not the same as being thankful for every thing. Nowhere are we commanded to be thankful for every thing, just in every thing. That little preposition is important. For every thing give thanks would be a much different scripture. The man that penned these words wrote many of his letters while in jail. He was never thankful for being in jail, but he was thankful even though he was in jail. To be thankful in things you have to look beyond your current circumstances, be they good or bad, and focus on God and His blessings. God's blessings are not things, they are promises. They are the assurance of things hoped for, they are the promise of eternity with him. So now that it is Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, are you still thankful. I would encourage you to continue listing the things your are thankful for into December and beyond, and remember there is a difference between in and for.

Sparks Aren't Fires

     I recently heard this, "Sparks aren't fires." I heard it while watching someone analyzing a video about a band of three sisters that are now in their early 20s but have been performing together for over 10 years. These girls got the idea of being a band while playing the video game Rock Band. That was the spark for becoming a band. They have become a successful band through hard work and lots and lots of practice. They took that spark and tended to it and turned it into a fire.

     Sparks can start fires, but they can also just be sparks. If you want to start a fire you are going to have to do something more than have a spark. As Christians we experience those "spark" moments, times when the presence of God is tangible. Those moments are great, mountain top experiences, but if we don't do something to nurture that spark it will never turn into a fire. It is important to remember that sparks aren't fires. Sparks can start a fire, but it takes work after the spark to turn it into a fire.

Teaching Ted Talk

 

I was 28 when I started teaching. When I walked into that classroom for the first time, I didn’t have much “teaching” experience, but I did have 10 years of youth ministry experience. I think that really shaped my approach to teaching. I have now spent nearly 30 years teaching in a small Christian school. For the first 15 years of my teaching career, my parents didn’t really understand why I stayed at such a small school for so little money. They kept encouraging me to go work in the public schools, or at least at a bigger private school. That all changed when I started coaching volleyball. It wasn’t the volleyball that changed anything directly, it was the fact that they started coming to games. It was at those games that they started to get to know my students and they started to understand that what I was doing was more than a job, it was a calling.

Teaching, done correctly, is as much of a calling as preaching is. Just as the minister is called to the pulpit, the effective teacher is called to the… whiteboard? Podium? My philosophy has always been, “Teachers teach students, not a curriculum.” Yes, there are things we are hired to teach, but it is the other things that really have a lasting impact. I saw a story about a rich man, maybe an athlete or CEO, it doesn’t really matter, questioning a teacher as to why they did what they did for so little money. He asked why they didn’t find a “real” job and get paid more money. He said, “I make X amount of money a year. What do you make?” The teacher answered simply, “I make a difference.”

When our kindergarten teacher starts the year in August, babies walk into her room. In May little people walk out. Yes, they learned numbers and letters and how to read, but more than that they learned how to be people. In the elementary classes, those teachers take those little people and start building them into the men and women that God designed them to be. The students walk out as adolescents. Those adolescents come to us in the secondary classes and we continue, brick by brick, to build them up. They walk out on the verge of adulthood.

Most people are lucky to have an impact on one or two people in their lifetime, teachers impact roomfuls of people on a daily basis. I have been reminded of the impact that a teacher can have in many ways. I have had several students that went on to become teachers tell me that something I said in class made them decide to become a teacher. In a few cases they have told me exactly what it was I said to them 5, 6, 7 years ago that inspired them to teach. I have to take their word for it, because I have no recollection of saying those things. I give character awards to the seniors every year. They are fun, and everyone smiles and then we go on with the day. I didn’t really think they went any further than that. Then I was at the house of someone that had graduated a few years before to get a sofa and saw that he had his character award framed and hanging in his room. I have had 2 students tell me they were pregnant before they told most of their family. I have had a former student that you can probably count on one hand the number of people that have seen or heard him cry, call me tears because he was struggling with difficult life decisions and he knew I would tell him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear.

Things like that humble me, but they also reinforce the impact that a teacher can have. I am not special; I know teachers all over have similar stories. If you are a teacher reading this, you are making a difference. Building future adults is a special calling, do not grow weary in doing good. If you are not teacher, you can still make a difference. Just stop and actually listen to the people around you. Listen to understand, not just to respond. Most people only require small course corrections and you may be just the person to set them on the new path they are looking for.