Messages Magnifying His Majesty

Recently, God has been teaching me a lot.

At work, my class has been very hard to handle, many of them have been absent, so it has been overwhelming trying to get anything taught or any work done, since I am always either dealing with discipline issues or catching students up from missing days or weeks of school. However, through this, God has reminded me of the importance of being completely dependent upon Him. He has shown me how truly, no matter how frustrating a person may be, each individual is made to reflect His image in their own unique way. He has reminded me of the importance of giving my all and having a joyful heart in the midst of hard times.

At church we have been going through the study of Exodus. It has been a good reminder of God's love for us, His power, His atoning sacrifice, and His constant presence even when He seems distant. I was thinking this evening about the Israelites and their 400 years of enslavement and comparing it to the 400 years of silence between Malachi and when Jesus was born. In both situations, I am sure people wondered where God was, as sometimes I wonder in my own situations. Yet, then God comes as the "I am." Christ comes as Emmanuel (God with us). He is existent and present in our lives.

In a staff devotions at school, God keeps reminding me of the importance of living each day bring God the glory. This also connects to the Exodus study, as we have talked about how God delivers the Israelites to demonstrate His glory.

Also, with His little nudges each day, God keeps reminding me that it is not about me. That he prefers me to serve those around me through small acts of love than to work on showing that I am a great teacher or doing things for me to enjoy. He is reminding me that I need to poor myself out in love to serve those around me. As I have been overwhelmed with making sure that I eat and sleep and still get at least some of my work done, I have not spent the energy I should in serving God in this way yet.

God has also been blessing me in great ways.
- While my class has been challenging, they seem to be growing and maturing and this week they behaved incredibly well and we were able to do many fun things in class and get a lot of work done as well.
- Since I broke my foot in May, my foot has either been in a cast or been in pain. This week, I started going to physiotherapy, and it has improved tremendously. This weekend, I plan to go jogging at least once to see how it does.
- God is allowing me opportunities to get more involved with my church, which has helped me feel so much more at home.
- The 4th/5th grade girls' basketball team that I am coaching has a great attitude and loves playing, even if they are playing a team that is much bigger and rougher than they are. Our team was moved to a harder division, which has been really challenging, but I think will stretch them and make them better basketball players in the end.
- Today we had middle school girls help out in our classroom. They were a huge blessing as they helped my students get unfinished work done, prayed with my students, and then played games with them.
- God has allowed me opportunities to get to know my staff members more, through prayer groups and dinners out, which has been phenomenal.
- Even though my class is hard to control, they love participating, even in Bible, which was a struggle last year.