September 27 Home Communicator – The other day after school I was involved in a meeting where we were talking about assessments and learning targets in our school. We had some really good discussions about having our teaching targets in mind while we are teaching our children. We went on to discuss how important it is to accurately assess what we are teaching each day. The discussions we had that day have stuck with me ever since, but maybe in a way I had not anticipated. While learning targets are certainly valuable for teaching, they are also a great concept to process when living our life each day.
Have you ever been around people who simply love life, people who see each day as a gift from God? They are contagious, aren’t they? At night, when I am out exercising or just lying awake in bed, I sometimes think about or assess my day. I often start with what I hoped I would accomplish in a day. Have you ever spent time doing that at the end of a long day or week? How do you feel when you take a close look? Do you sometimes measure or assess based on tasks accomplished, like I do? Too often, I find myself using that as a barometer by which I measure myself. The problem is my personal targets are really not so much about tasks as they are impacting lives for Him, making a difference for Him in our everyday life. Sometimes my assessments don’t match my targets. Each day truly is a gift from God and I often look back and wonder how I could have used my time in a different way and also how knowing what I do know can change things for tomorrow.
I was reading through a devotional called “Time Management God’s Way” by Craig Groeschel, and in it he quoted James 4:14. It says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes!” The truth is we cannot create more time; however, we can control what we do with the time we have. The author closed by saying that we are given an amazing gift each day called time. The question is “What do we do with that gift?” I think I now have a better understanding of the phrase my Dad used to say “Time well spent.”
Serving Him Together,
Dan Pott, Superintendent
