Have you ever put a lot into a lesson, and then didn't feel like it worked well afterwards?
Most of the time I feel good after I teach, because I've seen again the power of God's Word to touch hearts and minds. But sometimes I go into a lesson confident that I've heard from the Lord how to set up the hook, the best questions, strong applications -- and it just doesn't feel like it clicked. For me, or for my students. Dud. Flat.
The week before Easter I experienced this when I was teaching a large class of adults, talking about Jesus as our substitutionary sacrifice as pictured in Isaiah 52-53.
In baseball terms, I swung and hit the ball maybe 8 feet up the 1st base line.
"Ok, we go on," I said to myself.
But on Easter Sunday I heard that two people were powerfully impacted by the lesson. (One was a visitor who is Muslim.) Another person told me that they shared the key ideas with his neighbor and they were persuaded to come to Easter service.
My feelings did a 180 turn and I rejoiced that God had used it well. I really was teaching to change lives!
I share this with you to encourage you. Your feelings are real, but they are not the final arbiter of value of a lesson. Follow through on what you receive from the Lord in preparing a lesson.
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1 comment:
This happens to me more than I care to admit! I often feel as if I hit a homer, and no one gives me any feedback; or what I get is only about what I didn't say or do.
Then, I will be in the mullygrubs, because (by my feelings) I obviously missed it. That's when people cannot say enough good things about what I did.
I am having to learn to put my trust in the Lord for the lesson AND its delivery.
Dale
www.practicalbibleteaching.com
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