Flexibility and the Quote of the Week

This week in our faculty meeting, I did a devotion on FLEXIBILITY, which by the way, is NOT my favorite word.

I shared with my MS/HS teachers last week and my Elementary teachers this week that my pastor used to hold up a big sign with that word written on it.  He'd talk about how we had to be flexible and share.  We were a mobile church at that time.  Occasionally, he still brings it up and silently, I still cringe a bit.

To me, a very TYPE A gal, flexibility innately meant it was for people who fail to have a plan.

In recent years, God has convicted me otherwise.

I have learned that being flexible is not the absence of planning.  It is the ability to say that another plan may need to take precedence over yours.  It is being willing to bend, without breaking, and take a different route.  Ultimately, you may end up in the exact same spot.

God often uses situations that seemingly spin out of our control to teach us some of the most important lessons.  Being rigid and stuck in the muck may not show your steadfast spirit or commitment to your initial plan or decision.  It may show that your stubbornness has inhibited you from reaping the bounty God wishes to bestow on you.  The image I have is of a potter taking that pile of clay and molding it into a beautiful piece of art.

A scripture that springs to mind is Isaiah 64:8, "But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; All of us are the works of your hand."

In the education world, flexibility is often exhibited in using formative assessment to shape a lesson.  It is redoing your lesson plans the night before because your kids didn't get it that day and need to have the lesson retaught in a different way.  Sometimes it is placing an individual student or family's needs above your own and spending an extra hour after school or during your planning period simply listening.  Other times it is putting a smile on your face when yet another seemingly mundane idea is being forced upon you.

Flexible.

Bendable.

Moldable.

Changeable.

Willing.

Are you willing to be open to God's leading?

Are you willing to be led by students?  Colleagues?  Administrators?  Family members?  Friends?

How have you been blessed by being flexible?