Daily Quiet Time 1.9.17

John 15:7 NIV
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

My flesh thinks this is a winning lottery ticket that needs to be claimed. As a Christian I can get whatever I want. I just need to be asking more, so why don't I do this? It is probably because I have asked for lots of things and have not received them, at least, not in the form I was expecting. It dawns on me that Jesus was the answer to probably millions of prayers, just not in the form that people were expecting.

That would mean to be that I should expect the answer to my prayers to not be exactly what I expect, but exactly what I need.

Then there is the whole "if you remain in me and my words remain in you" part. My head and heart tell me I am not remaining in Jesus the way that a true servant, friend or someone that considers Him to be my ultimate savior would do. When that is the case, my hunch is that my wishes will change, as well as my ability to endure, persevere and patiently wait for those answers.

Also, I wonder why it translates to "done for you" rather than "given to you". Maybe when our heart is in alignment with Christ, the things we wish for require to be done rather than given, like, my character needs strengthening rather than my driveway needs a shiny new car.

I want my head and heart to "get this" more...please help me with that. May what I wish for be what you wish for me and my family.

Create More, Consume Less

In some respects, this is a big year for me. Some friends have already asked me how I feel about turning 40. Fine, I guess. Maybe I should say ask me in a few months when it sets in. I am not one for resolutions, mostly because I am not willing to put in the work to keep them. I have prided myself on never working on my birthday (Jan 1) in my life. For many years it was sitting around and watching football. Over the past several years, its been more of a pass on changing diapers and nap duty.

Ah yes, where was I...the point of this post, and the posts to come. I felt prompted by God last month with the simple to understand yet difficult to keep goal of creating more, and consuming less. It was an idea I first had a few years ago when I wrestled with the idea of being made in God's image. Let's see, He is the Creator...I am made to be like Him...I should be creating. For me, unfortunately, that doesn't mean drawing, painting or music. My medium has always been words. Up to this point, they've been reserved for sarcastic social media posts. Nothing wrong with those, for the most part. However, I also am looking for a way to challenge myself in my quiet times, to give myself a more specific output than 5 minutes pondering my verse of the day from the Bible App.

That's where this rambling collection of words comes into play. My goal is to be more reflective and intentional...for this space to be where I process what is going on in my life, be it as a husband, father, teacher, all of the above or none of the above. I am typing as if there is an audience, but there may never be one. Maybe I will post these things publicly, and maybe they will be lost on the information superhighway. Regardless, create more and consume less...that's my resolution for 2017. The caveat to that I may in fact end up consuming more too. What my mind consumes will be of higher quality and sustenance. More books, less trivial Internet or television garbage. So, let's do this...

First Day of School (Year 3)

I started my third year of teaching 5th and 6th grade math at an inner city school in Cincinnati. It was my best first day so far. Maybe that's because I was 15 minutes late due to my unfortunately swiping my wife's keys as well as my own. All those last minute touches to my room went out the window when I had to drive back home 30 minutes before turning around and heading back to school. If you are keeping score at home, my commute was 90 minutes instead of 30. It certainly meant things had to improve from there. At this point in the year, I am teaching 3 classes of math. One group of students is 5th graders, one group is 6th graders and one group is a mix of 5th and 6th graders. We are hoping to have enough students to merit a 4th teacher and subsequently wave goodbye to that split classroom. It is going to be a real challenge once I start getting into content in the next week or two. Today was icebreakers, rules creation and some clerical stuff. Oh, a boy cried a few tears in my class. Normally, that would be a bad thing. I was just asking him how he was doing. He was reserved and looked pretty warn out. He wouldn't really say anything aside from nodding. He did indicate he was tired. When he cried, I felt like crying. Pretty much every time I see one of these kids hurting that bad, I feel a pit in my stomach. After reflecting on it a bit, I am taking the whole incident as a sign that he was opening up to me in a way and that I will be able to make a real connection with him. I could spend 20 minutes and a few thousand words rambling on about teaching strategies, objectives and other stuff. I'd rather close my eyes, fall asleep and gear up for Day 2.