Booyah!!

Okay, so if you have ever met a Middle School teacher, you know the term, “Booyah!”

We MS teachers have a knack of showing off or showing out.  It is in our nature.  Look we are amongst preteens and new-teens all day long.  Their, “It’s all about me” culture kinda rubs off on us.  It happens.  Just accept it.

And if you have ever been around a group of MS teachers you will hear lots and lots of proud boasting of students’ accomplishments.  We love to talk one up each other around the lunch table.  We compare stories, notes, and those pesky habits we seem to find in all of our students past, present and yes, even future.

We love to share stories about our students.  Bragging rights.  Well earned if you ask me.  So an occasional BOOYAH is tossed around the table……. Ummmmm have you met a middle schooler?  That’s the way they are……again…. rubbed of onto us…… ahem.  Seriously.  I promise.

So last night I ran across this little gem…..

“If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.” 1 Corinthians 1:31

Powerful.  Imagine if the lunch table conversations were about what the Lord had done that day.  We don’t think twice about bragging on our students.  Why don’t we brag about God?

Bragging is one thing over accomplishments….. adding “I taught that kid everything” attitude becomes dangerous.   It is that age old attitude problem we humans tend to get.  We boast to boost ourselves up emotionally and socially.

Just think what would happen if we actually gave the credit to God.  That would be a game changer for sure.

Maybe we should give God the high five Booyah! Do it.  I dare ya!

Certainly Lost the Zeal

Life is so uncertain.  The uncertainty of life causes the certainty of Jesus.

Or at least it should.

Beth Moore, in one of the studies I participated in years ago, described a time when she experienced a separation from God.  It was the hardest time she had ever experienced.

I believe that is what I am experiencing at the moment.  My zeal and zest for God has been lost.  I am so confused as to how to get it back.

Read God’s word you say…… I have.

Pray more…… I do daily.

Get involved more……. And that is just it…… when I do…. nothing.

Talk about it……. Poor Mark, he doesn’t know how to answer this question.  He listens.

I thought it was depression.  I thought it was anxiety.  I thought it was residue of the past creeping up into my heart.  I thought it was all the changes in our church.

I don’t know anymore.  I just have lost it somewhere.

So early this morning, I laid in bed trembling from the side effects of all the steroids that were pumped into me at the ER due to an allergic reaction that wouldn’t go away with even my 2 epi-pen shots…… another story for another day…….anyways, I was praying as to what is my spiritual problem.

I began to look back at when I was traveling on my spiritual blissful path.  It was when I wasn’t working.  I was writing daily.  I was running our household and volunteering many hours at church as well as participating in every Bible study I could attend.  I was literally bathing in God and soaking in all His grace, love, and joy.

Now, my time is tied up with work.  An obligation I must fulfill.  I have lost the energy to write every day.  There aren’t any classes at church on Sunday evenings to attend.  By the time I get home, cook dinner and think about going to Wednesday night Bible Study, I am either late or too tired to think much less attend.  Listen, I get it.  I don’t have the energy of a 20 or 30 something.  I am teaching like a beginner teacher having to recreate the wheel just to get lesson plans done.  I do honestly get it.  But, there are other people that work just as much as I do and still have the zeal, energy and the want to.

Am I spiritually ill?  I have taken Beth Moore’s advice and I am praying that God will give me the “Want to” again.

I know the repercussions of the hard hearted and the lukewarm Christians.  That scares me.  I don’t want to be that person, ya know?

I thought perhaps a drastic change is needed.  I really don’t want to move to another church.  I love my church family.  But then again, I only feel myself fading into the background and no one is really noticing.

So anyways, why I am posting this I have no idea.  I felt a nudge and thought what the heck…… perhaps, it would get me one step closer to getting the zeal back.