In a van down by the river. . . .

On the first day of school this year we had a motivational speaker talk to the students at the high school I work at. He was good, better than I had expected. He came from a pretty rough background - no dad, mom was a drug addict and he basically had to run the show for his siblings. He had a coach in high school that challenged his attitude and he was motivated to do greater things. His main message was that to be everything you want to be, you have to be real, you have to be transparent, and you have to have people around you that support you and are positive. Right on. Sounds good.

That night the Lord used this guy's message to motivate me in a different way: He was telling me to share my testimony with my students. Most of the kids knew I was a Christian, I would try to insert my beliefs in here or there in the course of a lesson plan, but never laid it all out. This year though, was going to be different.

So, the next day, I scrapped the lesson plan, and took the entire class period to lay out my testimony and then told them that this was my last year of teaching and coaching, I was off to truly follow Christ, to pick up my own cross. Scary as heck, wasn't sure how they would react, or if by next week I would be fired. No worries (as of now at least:))

Since then, I have had literally hundreds of opportunities to share my faith with my students. God has blessed me by giving me these opportunities. My words are definitely challenging them to think in a way many of them probably never have, but probably more significantly, they have challenged me to live out my faith in an authentic way in every area of my life. School has always been an area that I have kept under wraps, and I have had every excuse not to be transparent, not the least being that I could get canned. I have no excuse now, because seriously, who cares if I get fired.

The typical response is laughter, or raised eyebrows, a long pause, and then laughter. Usually though, they end up wondering about some things. How? Why? Where? When? Then I have my opportunity to tell them how, why, where and when. They usually respond by shaking their head in disbelief and then smile and ask more questions. It has been awesome, that motivational speaker really knows how to motivate.