Growth – Faith Fitness and Mommy Stuff

chelsea-ferenando-163294-unsplash Photo by Chelsea Ferenando

This post was supposed to be all about how I hear from God but I’m not a prophet or insane. I feel like I have to add that disclaimer every time I choose to follow through on a God-invitation to give someone a word or share a message with a broad audience. Like, I need people to know God doesn’t speak to me through burning bushes nor do I think I’m a modern day prophet. But I also need people to know that I don’t hear voices – I can just discern between my thoughts and His.

I wanted people to know that when I follow through on a God-invitation to share a word or message that the message is not my own. But before I could fully flesh out that blog post God made that “Pump your brakes” noise and called me out on my unwillingness to follow through on said invitations. So the post went from one big disclaimer to a confession of my ego-driven disobedience. Yay.

You see, pretty much every post God invited me to write this year focused on or touched on a hot topic – something controversial that was relevant at the time I received His invitation to open my mouth (or write in the case of this blog) – that was sure to tick some people off. Believers and non-believers alike were not going to like everything God asked me to share. Not many people read this blog and I really didn’t want to alienate them. Ugh.

Why was I so caught up in people-pleasing when I thought I’ve made substantial progress over the year? Put simply it’s because I’m human and we all have an innate desire to be a part of a greater community. While I don’t know most of the people who read this blog I guess I like to imagine that if we met in real life that we could be friends. And as for the readers who do know me, I would prefer to not upset them because I avoid conflict like the plague – straight up.

What God hit me with tonight is that when I get to heaven it’s just me and Him. I’m not going to see any of the people who read this when I see Him face to Face. Not to say that no one who reads this blog is going to heaven. They just won’t be answering for my life choices. Only I will be giving an account for my life. God can be pretty direct with me like that.

I figured since He put it that way…

I need to get honest about my disobedience in order to do something different. So here’s the truth: I choose to ignore God because

I try to please people instead of honoring Him
I fear what people will think of me instead of trusting Him – this is especially true when it comes to my in-real-life people
I often choose comfort over Him
I question the call on my life
I don’t think I’m qualified to be an ambassador for God
I’m often tempted to reword His message in an effort to make it more palpable but He won’t let me so rather than surrender I just walk away from the invitation entirely

I’m sharing this today for a few reasons. First, confession is good for the soul. Second, I know I’m not alone in hearing from God and not really knowing how to walk it out (sorry if that song is now stuck in your head, too). Lastly, I’m sharing this because I am sick and tired of living in disobedience. I haven’t been spending time with God for months now. I’ll pray, and worship, hear from Him, talk with Him, but I haven’t spent like legit “Let me carve out some time to sit at Your feet and be fed” time with God. I blamed it on my routine being thrown off over summer break. But the truth is that after months of refusing to open my mouth when He told me to, I found it more and more difficult to be in close proximity to Him. Willful rebelliousness will do that.

So here’s to leaving the excuses behind and walking boldy in obedience. Will I still worry about all of the things I mentioned as excuses? Most certainly. I’m still a broken person working towards wholeness, still spirit wrapped in flesh. As long as I’m breathing I will struggle with that stuff. But, just for today – and hopefully each day hereafter – I am choosing love over fear. His love for me over my fear of being rejected by other broken people.

Last week, a friend asked via social media for people to share their 2018 in five words and look to 2019 in three. I responded with “Even the saved need grace” and “Surrendered and obedient”, respectively. I’m going to walk into 2019 holding onto both declarations. I will choose to surrender to God’s will daily and obediently follow through on His invitations while I accept God’s grace as needed to avoid getting caught up in the lie that it’s possible to follow Him perfectly.

***Let this blog post serve as a disclaimer for all future blog posts. I plan on writing whenever God prompts me to do so and I won’t be explaining why I’m writing or trying to make His message more palpable. Hopefully, we can still be friends (be it virtual or IRL) after you read whatever He’s asked me to share. But if not, that’s okay because obedience is better than sacrifice.***

I don’t post very often, but when I do, it’s about my faith, my experiences with all things health and wholeness, and my life as a mom. But today, I am posting about a part of my life I rarely talk about – being a teacher.

In order to renew our teaching certificates, every five years teachers in South Carolina have to take a technology course. I hold my National Board certificate so I have ten years to renew my certificate and don’t have to go through the normal process to do so. But I’m still required to take a technology course every five years. Unfortunately, it’s been well over five years since I last took a tech course so I jumped at the chance to take one this semester.

There were two course offerings that seemed interesting and I asked God to help me choose one that would actually be worth the time investment. The Connected Educator focuses on Social Media for Educators and since I try to use social media for ministry and life I knew I would use whatever I learned.

Honestly, I was just looking to possibly get some hacks on how to effectively use the platforms I’m already using. Instead, I learned some pros and cons regarding educators using social media (both professionally and personally) and best of all my passion for teaching and my interest in blogging was reignited. Totally worth the time investment!

I have big plans to flip my classroom – an idea I toyed with years ago but just couldn’t see how to implement it – thanks to EdPuzzle. I’ll be able to record my lessons using my SMART Board over the summer (at least through the first quarter) and using EdPuzzle my students will be able to work through the lesson, having to answer questions during the recording in order to advance through it. I am so stoked to be able to use technology in order to flip my classroom.

Oh, and as infrequently as I blog, I’ll be adding a new blog dedicated to my experiences as a teacher. Specifically, I’ll be focusing on what flipping my class will look like and the differentiation I’m hoping to do within my classroom because of it. As soon as I work out what the name of the new blog will be I’ll link to it here.

Have you taken any course or attended a workshop that has reignited your passion? If so, what was it focused on?