Christian Devotionals and Scripture Applied to Everyday Life

I tiptoed down the stairs to my quiet spot, lit my pear candle, and tried to pray. But my mind was cluttered with frustrations and concerns that made it hard to concentrate.

ChAoS met me on Thursday morning as I stepped through our office door. My desk was gone and in its place was an 8- foot folding table piled high with an assortment of equipment. Calculators, books, staplers, stamps, and a mound of paperwork and files cluttered the surface area. Somewhere under the mass my computer keyboard was hidden, recognizable only by the cord that hung over the side of the table. My computer itself was lifeless - the tangle of wires and electrical cords covering the floor reminded me of a tree that had been uprooted in a wild storm. 

How do you keep from veering off course when life gets tough? Things seem to be going along smoothly and all of a sudden a difficult trial pops up and makes our life-race hard. At first our faith may be strong, but as the uphill battle continues our trust in God can waver, our pace slow, and perhaps we are even tempted to give up and sit down on the sidelines. There is only one thing that can keep us headed in the right direction - our focus.

You have probably seen him - the one who shoots off the starting line with incredible speed and bounds to the front of the pack. What a thrill it must be for this runner to know that he has left everyone in the dust!

For the past two years I have been a member of an advisory board for the Education Department at Cedarville University. In yesterday's meeting we discussed the need for student teachers to improve their student assessment skills. It's wonderful to have a clear objective and an interesting lesson plan, but the  real test is whether or not the students are growing in their knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. Without that something in the method of teaching needs to change.

We have a somewhat regular pastime around here of chasing chickens. Quite often one of the hens will "fly the coop." Looking out the kitchen window, I will see her pecking around the side of the barn and, with chagrin, brace myself for another energetic escapade. It is not an easy ordeal to  corral a chicken into a corner or shoo her back into the barn. She likes being free to roam the fields looking for succulent bugs and leftover corn kernels from last year's harvest.