You never know it until you teach it...

I work as a corporate trainer. That means I can - by positional power - make perfectly grown up adults act like children in public for the sake of learning new skills. I absolutely love it... and for the most part I think the participants do too as they realize just how much of our childlike inquisitive nature is lost when we become adults.

One would then think that I might be a natural teacher for my kids then... but I'm ashamed to say that is not so. You see, I have to live with my kids and I'm scared to death that someday they'll catch me not doing what I've taught them to. Recently however, I've recognized that teaching them the "old" way by just reading books is not working for our family devotion time together. So we've tried engaging their senses in the process of learning.

This week we attempted to help them internalize Psalm 46:1 - "The Lord is our strength and refuge; an ever-present help in trouble." (For more on how we did this visit Nicole's Blog - www.bishopfamilyjournal.blogspot.com - and look under the heading "Big or Small they still won't fall".

To summarize, we were helping the kids see that if they dropped their egg with no protection it would break. Yet if they wrapped their egg in layers of protection and then it dropped it wouldn't break... the protection offered by - in this case - Wal-Mart bags - was like God's strength that we can wrap ourselves in.

Bingo... it hit me between the eyes as I was teaching this lesson. You see we've been living on the edge recently. Not "The edge" in terms of cutting edge, motivational type of edge... but the edge in terms of almost tipping off and falling. The extra adjustment to a new baby, a sleep-deprived mother, house projects and renovations that are still not 100% complete, 2 pre-schoolers, BSF-leadership challenges, etc... have kept us on the edge. Nicole and I have not been communicating so our marriage has been a bit "edgy" lately. Then work has been crazy with some re-organization going on and people's jobs being impacted - which has kept me on the edge lately. And then all the aforementioned items adding to the stress of life. I realized I hadn't taken time to wrap my self in the Wal-Mart bag of protection. I haven't been cloaking myself with God's love. I've not been as earnestly seeking Him in my quiet time.

What was I doing? Well to be quite honest, I was giving into the lie that because of all the busyness, I needed more sleep, more rest, more relaxation, more recreation - more laziness.

As we wrapped up our egg-dropping experience we closed in prayer asking God to help keep us from cracking when we fall. I heard Nicole utter that she was about ready to crack... and it hit me again -

You never really know something until you teach it. I pray I finally learn to wrap myself daily in Your protection.