Little Sparks

About a year ago, my wife found a journal that she just had to get me (it’s a Star Wars Moleskin). I decided to use it to keep track of the little moments I like to call “Everyday Jesus”. Why “Everyday Jesus”? Well, I’m glad you asked! It’s because I firmly believe that a little bit of spiritual truth can be found in everything we see. The problem is we often do not take the time to notice. In no way am I saying that Jesus is ordinary or uninteresting. In fact, it’s just the opposite. He is extra-ordinary! He chooses to insert Himself into our lives just so He can draw us into a closer relationship. I believe that this is one of the keys to the Christian life. Yes, read your Bible. Yes, pray, tithe, and help the poor. By all means, share the Good News! Do all these things but also build an actual relationship with Jesus. Listen for when Jesus whispers to you during your waking hours. Look for Him in all that you see and wherever you go. Let your mind wander to Him instead of to the latest news headline or work problem. Time spent dwelling on Jesus and his spiritual truths is worth so much more than the paltry things we normally fill our extra time with. Here’s one of the first one’s I wrote back in April of 2014.

Fire Detectors and Fish Prayers

I have the privilege to work with some fantastic preschool teachers and aides. They love kids and do a good job teaching them, much better than I would do. There is very little for me to do except stay out of the way of their well-run school program. However, sometimes things happen to mess up our carefully made plans and you just have to go with it. Last month our school had a visit from the fire marshal. Apparently the building that was put up in the late 50's was never inspected for educational purposes. Now, we are working to resolve all matters with the State Fire Marshal, but it's been hysterical in the mean time...mostly because I don't have to do it. The main problem we are facing is that there is no fire alarm system in the building. We have smoke detectors, but not a building wide fire alarm system that an educational building in Louisiana is required to have. To compensate for this while we install one, someone has to do a visual check of each room in the building (I stopped counting at 18) and then call it in to the office that there is no fire...every thirty minutes. I know it's mean, but I actually snickered out loud when the fire marshall was sitting in my office telling me this. For the most part I'm a "by the book" person, so I typed up a form and organized our aides into a temporary fire watch team (I almost got little fake badges). It took about two weeks for the aides to get it straight, because they still had classroom duties to attend to. They eventually had to work out a rotating schedule because they could only be in one place at a time. The aides were limited by space and time. God, however, is not.