Bethiepoo03

This is the beloved air I breathe
2002-11-13 05:51:21 (UTC)

excelling or just getting by?

In all that we do, God calls us to do it with excellence.
Sometimes there is a fine line between just doing the bare
minimum and doing everything to the best of your ability,
or with excellence. Sometimes just getting by is all that
we can do. Lately I have noticed that this is the case
more often than not. If I have a paper due, I'll start
working on it the night before, or better yet, two hours
before it's due. For an English major, I can pull it off,
but it's not the best of my ability. There are a variety
of excuses and reasons, but it's frustrating for me. I
want to do all things with excellence, I want to excel and
bring honor to God with my grades, but sometimes for me,
it's all I can do just to get the work handed in on time.
I'm frustrated with one of my teachers. I have not been
crazy about her since the beginning and quite frankly I
don't think that she's a very good teacher at all. As a
result, I have not been taking that class very seriously.
The temptation for me is to start talking trash about her,
and start dissing her as a teacher. I was getting so
frustrated with her as I was reading an e-mail that she had
sent me, I could feel the anger rising up within me, but
then I read the signature that I automatically have on the
end of every piece of outgoing mail: "You can not tailor
make your situations in life, but can tailor make the
attitudes to fit those situations". That calmed me down.
I must realize that this is my responsibility. I did not
do all of the things that she had required of me to earn an
A. Whether I feel that it's fair or not, those rules were
laid out ahead of time and I didn't follow them. It's my
responsibility whether I think that she should be nicer
about it or not.

In our bible study group here at school, we have been
studying the book of James. These past two weeks, we have
been talking about the power of our words. I made a
decision tonight that I was going to use my mouth to honor
other people, to build them up with my words, and to not
speak slanderously about them. This is one area that I had
been letting fall by the wayside recently. I have noticed
that a little bit more I was swearing at certain
situations, and I was catching myself saying less than
positive things about other people. God calls us to honor
him with our mouths and that does not mean speaking
negatively about them. God calls us to honor all of his
creations. I knew that the second I walked in the door to
this hall (I live in a residence hall...remember?) I was
going to have an opportunity to be challenged. I did
too...When I read that e-mail by that teacher I started to
get mad. I'm proud of myself that I was able to hold my
thoughts and hold my tongue. I know that on my own
strength I would not be able to do this, but because I
prayed and asked God to give me the strength, He has.

There is an amazing power that comes through allowing God
to work in our lives, and we don't even realize it
sometimes. So many times I pray about things and then they
come to pass and I have to consciously acknowledge the fact
that God had something to do with that. It states in the
bible that every good and perfect gift comes from the
father above. When those good things happen, God is the
one to receive glory for all of that.

Now I'm just rambling.

Good night

beth




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