January… it’s one of those lull times for Australian teachers, that isn’t as much of a lull as it might seem to the uninitiated. Looking to the year ahead, I realise that I’m teaching a bunch of classes or grades that I don’t normally teach.

Partly this is my fault because I thought it’d be a good idea to introduce a philosophy elective for Year 9 and 10. Good one. Now prepare all the materials.

However, the rest is just how the timetable fell. So, usually it’s Year 12 that seems the hardest work but this year it might end up being the lightest load. I’ve taught all that before, however many times over.

I should be keen about all the new things… but one of them is teaching Year 10 boys to sew and I really have no idea how that is going to go.

And it also seems like a lot of hard work.

I wonder if that’s how we are with God sometimes. We stick with the same practices and spiritual disciplines and routines because that’s what we already know and so there is, at least, a level of ease about it.

We don’t try something new because we just don’t know what’s involved or how it will fit into our lives. Or we fear that God might ask too much of us.

For those of us who like to have the big picture, perhaps we’re not so good with ‘give us this day our daily bread’. We’re not so good at taking it a step at a time.

It’s good to have a vision. But do we miss the next right thing when we’re so future focused?

Do we miss God’s still, small voice and what he’s saying to us today because we’re worrying about 12 months or 5 years away?

Sometimes I ask God ‘why have you got me here?’ – whether that’s to do with work, or study, or any place that I think he wants me to go.

Not that I think it’s wrong to ask the question, but perhaps I need to just listen more to what he’s saying and just do what he says. I don’t always need a reason.

True obedience doesn’t mean we necessarily know all the answers before we obey. We just obey.

Something to think about.

I’m still not sure how I’m going to go with Year 10 and the sewing though…

Yours contemplating the new year,

Alison