January 22 – “Hooking Up”

I started back teaching at Seaside Christian Academy today.  It was the first time since the hurricane.  Part of the problem was that I didn't have any of my teaching notebooks.  They were all lost at sea, as it were.  The other problem was I have been spending the better part of each week's "spare time" working on the house.  That, along with the time it takes to be a pastor has just left no time for me to prepare new lessons.  Our headmaster has been great.  The kids have been super.  They have been on to me to come back for quite a while now.  It is good to feel wanted.  I finally found a really good overview of the Bible textbook.  I'm planning to use it as a base for the class.  I imagine I'll make up some "different" lesson plans as we go along.  Gotta make it fun, you know.    I guess the session itself went well.  The kids were pretty wound up.  I like it that way.  They all stayed awake.  They even got into the "response" times.  I gave them an opportunity to learn about the consensus of the early Jews and Christians in accepting books into general usage.  Told them the headmaster was going to take us all out to lunch if we could only agree on one place.  They came up with all kinds of ideas, from Olive Garden to Wendy's to Saltgrass Steakhouse.  They even tried to vote on it.  They eventually settled on Olive Garden.  That's when I said I didn't want to leave the island.  I preferred Luby's.  That threw a kink in the works.  They had to revisit all their choices.  None of them wanted to go to Luby's, though.  We were at an impasse.  And so, since consensus wasn't reached, Mr. Collins was off the hook for lunch.  That consensus is not an easy thing.   We did do some work at the house this morning.  The workers were not there, so we had access to the power.  We decided to powerwash the storage compartment in the backyard, along with a few other things in the back.  I spread out the hose and hooked it up to the faucet.  Got the cord all plugged in, aimed the nozzle and … nothing.  I couldn't believe it.  This faucet was in the line of pipe that was cut off during work inside.  I unhooked the hose and walked out to the other faucet in the yard.  Chris stopped me before I got it hooked up, though, and put just enough doubt in my mind to make me go check.  Sure enough, that faucet came directly off the other one.  No water at all in the back yard.  We ended up having to drag everything out to the front yard faucet.  That one worked.  We were hooked up.   It made me think of when Jesus stood before Pilate.  Pilate said, "Don't you realize that I have the power to free you or crucify you?"  Jesus answered in John 19:11, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above."   Father, you sure knew where to hook up to your source of power.  Forgive me when I try to do stuff on my own.  I need to stay hooked up with you and you alone.  Amen.