Prayer -- Lesson 2
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
2. With God all things are possible
Everything in school came easy to me, however in JHS I learned that teachers would grade you lower if they thought you hadn't worked hard enough. So I vowed that the teachers in HS would see all the work I did. I didn't know how, but I did know this would be my goal.
But the Lord was with me and He suggested I lock my books in my locker every night at 3. If I don't take them home I can't do HW at home. It was a simple plan and in the first couple of weeks I had figured out how to do this. I filled every moment with HW. I did English at homeroom which gave me a good 25 minutes sitting at desk to write whatever I needed to write. I wrote Social studies reports at lunch time. I did my math problems walking from class to class throughout the day. If I needed extra time I would show up at 7:30am when they open the doors for students and that would give me a full fifty minutes. Everything was working fine but I had filled every single extra minute I had and then we had a problem. I had a test coming up and I hadn't studied for it. I had not scheduled any time for studying! It seemed to me this experiment was about to come to a screeching halt (I told the Lord I would do this as long as I was never late with an assignment). To me this was obvious, you have to study for tests, you don't have any time to do that, so this is clearly not working. Still before throwing in the towel I prayed and told the Lord I need to be able to schedule time in the day to study for tests, however, I can't give you any time to do that. I have 0 minutes to give you but I need you to figure out how I can study for tests during the day as well. When I prayed this I thought it was a joke, this is absurd, of course it can't be done. But then the Lord suggested that when I am in class why not use that time to study for exams?! In other words give the teacher the full attention, focus like a laser and that way not only will you learn the material you will be studying at the same time?!
So I did it and it worked. I discovered that many of my classmates sleep walked through school. I on the other hand was getting ten hours of sleep every night. I was sharp, focused and soon realized that teachers would actually tell you the questions and answers on tests during class. I also learned that if anything was on the test the teacher would talk about it in class. I was not taking text books home and reading them, everything was what the teacher said in class and I was fully prepared for every exam!
And this solved the problem I had. My reputation at the school among the teachers was that I was the hardest working student they had ever seen. Come in at 7:30am and they will see me sitting outside my class doing work. First period teacher comes in and I am sitting by the door working. Pass me in the hall and you see me doing math problems. Spot me at lunch and I am doing work. Same thing with a free period or homeroom. Also I was extremely attentive during class, more so than anyone else. However, my friends and family had a completely different view. They never saw me with a book, never heard me say that I needed to go home and study. I worked from 8-3 mon-fri but after that it was all free time.
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
2. With God all things are possible
Everything in school came easy to me, however in JHS I learned that teachers would grade you lower if they thought you hadn't worked hard enough. So I vowed that the teachers in HS would see all the work I did. I didn't know how, but I did know this would be my goal.
But the Lord was with me and He suggested I lock my books in my locker every night at 3. If I don't take them home I can't do HW at home. It was a simple plan and in the first couple of weeks I had figured out how to do this. I filled every moment with HW. I did English at homeroom which gave me a good 25 minutes sitting at desk to write whatever I needed to write. I wrote Social studies reports at lunch time. I did my math problems walking from class to class throughout the day. If I needed extra time I would show up at 7:30am when they open the doors for students and that would give me a full fifty minutes. Everything was working fine but I had filled every single extra minute I had and then we had a problem. I had a test coming up and I hadn't studied for it. I had not scheduled any time for studying! It seemed to me this experiment was about to come to a screeching halt (I told the Lord I would do this as long as I was never late with an assignment). To me this was obvious, you have to study for tests, you don't have any time to do that, so this is clearly not working. Still before throwing in the towel I prayed and told the Lord I need to be able to schedule time in the day to study for tests, however, I can't give you any time to do that. I have 0 minutes to give you but I need you to figure out how I can study for tests during the day as well. When I prayed this I thought it was a joke, this is absurd, of course it can't be done. But then the Lord suggested that when I am in class why not use that time to study for exams?! In other words give the teacher the full attention, focus like a laser and that way not only will you learn the material you will be studying at the same time?!
So I did it and it worked. I discovered that many of my classmates sleep walked through school. I on the other hand was getting ten hours of sleep every night. I was sharp, focused and soon realized that teachers would actually tell you the questions and answers on tests during class. I also learned that if anything was on the test the teacher would talk about it in class. I was not taking text books home and reading them, everything was what the teacher said in class and I was fully prepared for every exam!
And this solved the problem I had. My reputation at the school among the teachers was that I was the hardest working student they had ever seen. Come in at 7:30am and they will see me sitting outside my class doing work. First period teacher comes in and I am sitting by the door working. Pass me in the hall and you see me doing math problems. Spot me at lunch and I am doing work. Same thing with a free period or homeroom. Also I was extremely attentive during class, more so than anyone else. However, my friends and family had a completely different view. They never saw me with a book, never heard me say that I needed to go home and study. I worked from 8-3 mon-fri but after that it was all free time.