Prayer: Lord, give us the courage to cry out to You and acknowledge that we need Your guidance and help in our professional lives. Amen
Scripture: The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them… Psalm 34:7 NIV
Mr. Long, a third grade elementary teacher, faced an academic Goliath one year. His Goliath was a class of twenty-three students with over half of them being mainstreamed special needs children. Two had severe behavior disorders, half of them were ADD or ADHD, and the students’ reading levels varied from primer to the fourth grade levels. He was given 55 minutes each day to teach reading. He was being held accountable to accelerate their reading. The district had given him no appropriate program or training to meet the challenge, but God did.
Mr. Long cried out to God in prayer and asked for help. One day, while attending an all-day training on ADD and ADHD, the Lord began to give Mr. Long the plan and general outline for the program he was to use to begin meeting his students’ needs. God divinely gave him an original multi-level phonics, vocabulary, and reading fluency program that worked, that challenged every student in the room. Mr. Long even began marketing the program in his school district. (See www.fishingwithphonics.com to find this program.)
God made a way where there was no way. He showed Mr. Long, in the stream bed of prayer, where to find his smooth stones. Jesus truly was the way, the truth, and the light in Mr. Long’s classroom that year. Are you facing a Goliath right now? Have you cried out to God to ask for help?
Reflection: How does God want me to deal with the Goliaths I am facing right now in my professional life?
Getting Real: Cry out to the Lord first when you have a professional need. Ask for His help.
Copyright Don Clark. To connect with the author, email dclark@ceai.org
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