The Race

It has been a month since I last posted - my sincere apologies!


Today is the first day of semester finals at school, and I find myself remembering my days of taking finals. I have to admit to not HATING finals time. I loved late night study sessions with coffee and junk food and friends. There was a definite sense that we were doing something "important", grown up even. I enjoyed making sure that I knew the terms and quizzing each other to see who knew the most.

As this week has progressed, I wondered if my students were doing the same things and was pretty sure that they were. My first final was to mainly seniors and as they filed into class today I kind of smiled as I thought about where they would be next year, whose class and which college would be giving them finals; have I taught them things that they will use later on? These years seem so insignificant while you are going through them, but looking back on them now, I see that they had a huge impact on who and what I am. It is an awesome responsibility to be involved in this time as a teacher.

As I've thought about my finals and my classes these few days, I have been reminded time and again of Philippians 3:12-14

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

My students are an excellent object lesson in the reality of this verse. They are not perfected or complete but in each class, with each successive test, they "strain toward what is ahead".

This is my calling as well, to continue to press towards what God has called me to do. I am nowhere near where I need to end up, but I am far from where I began. Each day, with each lesson, test and trial, I press towards the mark. I continue to run the race as Paul talks about in
I Corinthians 9. I hope this is as encouraging to you as it has been to me. We are all works in progress - we are not called to be perfect this instant - we are called to work towards that goal in Christ. What a RELIEF!!!!