A Very Good Idea

It all started with a very good idea. Isn’t that always how it starts? At the beginning of the school year, I told God, “I’m really excited about school this year. I want to learn everything you have to teach me.”
He took me seriously.
It started with school. I moved into my first year of formal high school this year (though I’d been doing high school work for a few years before this one). That meant homework- and not just a little homework, but a load that convinced me that it would never end!
Then we brought home my brother. He came into our family through adoption, and babies who were adopted tend to be a little more demanding for the first month or two. They don’t come home as sleepy newborns, but as active (sometimes overactive) toddlers, in many cases.
School dropped on my priority list. I looked for every loophole, shortcut and way to cut a corner in my classes. And I figured out some pretty good ones. Then I felt as if God stopped me dead in my tracks.
It was time to do my work with excellence. That meant skipping out on doing some things that I’d much rather do. It meant working longer on projects and studying harder. I have an almost-photographic memory, so to actually sit down and study is pure torture to me. I had prayed for opportunities to learn. So he gave me some.
Now I’m here at the end of the year, staring ahead to a very blank summer. Part of me wants to make one big push to get all of my school work done really well and really fast. The other part of me is saying, “Why bother?”
Doing school is like preparing for a race. Some of you will go to college after you graduate. Others will stay behind and begin another part of their calling. Regardless of what you’re going to do when you’re out of school, it’s important to prepare for whatever God might call you to.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 talks about how when runners run, they have to go into strict training. Kind of like school. We have to work hard and be strict with ourselves so that we get a good training for our next path in life. Then, when we’re ready to run the real race, we’ll run in such a way as to get the prize. We’ll know what we’re doing, and we’ll have practiced throughout our training.