C-4: Walk the Line

Proverbs 4:25-27; 5:21, "Let your eyes look straight forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil... For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths" (ESV).

This must be day three back on Adderal. I knew it was a blow to me when I was told to not take it until the diagnostic tests were completed, and now I remember why. The difference is subtle, but it's there. I was most concretely aware of the difference last night and this morning. It took me a little while to get to sleep so I read a few chapters of Proverbs. This morning I kept waking up around 5 o'clock.

To many people, this may sound like a bad thing. Why should I be happy that I'm not sleeping? For starters, I am sleeping. I slept at least 7 hours with little to no interruption, so I am rested. Secondly one of the things that bothers me most when I have multiple stresses in my life is my ability to shut off and forget about it. Don't get me wrong, it's a blessing in some ways, but it also prevents me from getting uncomfortable enough with a situation to do something about it. From the outside, the impression is that I am somebody who's laid back and relaxed, but the reality can often be that I'm so stressed that the "string" has snapped. I can't handle any tension whatsoever.

This morning it wasn't worry keeping awake either. It was anticipation. This is my last day before I start student teaching and I'm really looking forward to it. The Lord has also been leaning on me to really accept and think seriously about being a teacher. I apologized to my Sunday School class this week because I haven't been taking them as seriously as I ought and as outlined in Titus chapter 2. They're good kids, and I want to give them some tools to prepare them for adolescence while providing them a last hurrah for childhood. This year hasn't been bad per se, we've been taking them through 1 Samuel, but I'd really like to find a way to get them to interact with Proverbs. It will take some wisdom to figure out how to do that. I wonder where I can find that? But if it's service to the Lord that is keeping me awake, I can't really complain can I? He kept waking Samuel all night.

Accountability Note: Though I'm not going as far as making an itinerary out of my to-do list. I have desired to put the items in some sort of order. To do this, I have decided to give point values between 1 and 99 to my tasks. I choose the number based on how large or critical the task is and how quickly it needs to be done. Generally, I'd like to limit this list to tasks I can accomplish in the next day or two with long range tasks being relegated to a calendar. Pieces of those tasks will show up in my to-do lists, however. Finding 9 sources is a fragment of a larger project.

Thanks for reading. Guess I'll get some work done!