Persevering...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything -- James 1:4, NIV 84


I have been chafing.  Wanting to start a new Bible study.  Wanting to dive back into teaching...I have lots of  potential ideas.  A ladies' group, looking at some of the writings that have ministered to me.  Another bookstudy online.  Possibly a youth Bible study...although that has only been mentioned to me once and I've heard nothing more about it.

I commented to a friend a couple of days ago that I really miss teaching.  I miss the interaction, I miss the demand on the anointing.  I miss the communion with Holy Spirit in preparing to teach.

But I'm in class.

The prescribed route for ministry rehabilitation is to take the inner healing class offered at church, which is a facilitated school on prayer ministry, affiliated with an international ministry whose material we use.

We have two levels...the first is basically to look at what's going on in your own life and the second is preparation to be a prayer counselor.  I haven't exactly been instructed to take it with regard to the current season of transition, but I've been encouraged to take the class for general edification by a number of folks who are involved in facilitating it for several years now.  Only teaching three classes a week as I was doing really made it impossible.

But I'm not teaching now, so I took a deep breath and signed up for the first level.  I figured if I didn't take the initiative to do it I would likely be strongly encouraged to do so by anyone I could possibly serve under in another ministry anyway.

We have 25 lessons, consisting of a teaching CD to listen to, a workbook to read through, questions to answer and turn in, class lectures and small group discussions.  We've lumped all the class lectures/small group discussions into 6  class sessions, and we only have one more session left, covering the last 5 lessons in the school.

I'm going to miss that last class due to an unmovable conflict, so I've also got to summarize each of those last five chapters to substitute for missing the lecture and small group discussion.

I won't lie, this has been kinda rough.  I'm not always in agreement with all the teaching points of the material, so at times I'm gritting my teeth and pushing through.

But some lessons have been quite illuminating; I've seen some of my issues from a different perspective.

And I've identified myself as highly 'performance oriented', but that's a whole post by itself...maybe.

But it is taking a lot of time and focus.  And teaching ...or even just trying to do a personal study of some sort on my own...would distract from the course of study I'm in.

So.  I'm trying hard not to look ahead and see what I might or might not do after I've finished the class.  I have to remind myself almost daily that I am doing the prayer ministry school and that is my focus now.

Persevering.