Tag Archives: positive

It is Finished

Jesus’ words on the cross “it is finished” have been immortalized in theology. Theologians talk about “Jesus finished word on the cross.” Not taking anything away from God awesome grace in that work….. but was it finished at that point? Or did Jesus still have to go to hell? Ascend to the Father? Pray for us?

Well of course, Jesus was right when He said “it is finished.” It was. By faith.

This realization was very meaningful to me. Hope it is to you. Just now posted along with confessions from the Bible. This might be helpful if you are going through a though time. BTW, I found it most helpful to actually read them out loud myself — even more than play so many sermon tapes myself. Try one and then the other. Tapes, er, recordings are very helpful if you can’t seem to do it yourself, but I do encourage laying your eyes on the text, spending time with it with God, and actually proclaiming them out loud yourself. All good. Get strong.

Teachers, please share

Okay, teachers. It is the end of the term, the end of a year. Please share how you keep your spirits up? How do you keep yourself positive in the face of argumentative, overly dependent, work avoidant and badly behaved students. Please brainstorm. How do you keep full of faith over students who seem determined to shut out anything positive or hopeful?

Here a starter list:
REST!
Think about the good students
Let off steam with other teachers, commiserate
Stop commiserating and start talking positive
Mobilize yourself for more direct teaching
Allow yourself to move off sweety-sweet and show appropriate annoyance at intentionally bad behavior
Stop showing annoyance and enforce boundaries in matter-0f-fact ways
Take a 5 minute dream vacation
Find those affirmations you wrote over your class earlier in the term and defiantly against fact, affirm them again
Think about something else
Start planning how to improve your teaching next year

Okay, so some listed items contradict others, but this is not a do list. I think different behaviors are called for in different circumstances. What do you think?