Well I have put all of my notes together, and have put slides for the lesson together, and I'm ready for tomorrow. Why do I feel sad about what is going through my mind? I'm going to tell my co-team teachers that I'm going to stop teaching the Sunday School class at the end of the session in August. I have been teaching this class for the last 8 1/2 years. But right now I feel pretty burned out. I need to take some time off, because I really need to be with my wife while she is still struggling over the death of her mother and father. Perhaps this is a selfish thing on my part, because I will no longer have to gather my wits about me and work on a lesson plan over several days during the week. But, I am starting to feel that I'm getting stale in what I'm putting together to present to the class. I need to make myself available for other ministry opportunities in the future. One thing that I need to do is to be able to sit under someone else's teaching beside myself. You do tend to learn a lot when you're teaching a class by yourself. Now that I have two teachers that I can really trust in to take over the class I don't feel as bad leaving it.

This Lord's day was really nice. I didn't have to teach today and I have to say that I really learned a lot in class today. Doug did a great job of putting forth a difficult subject (one of which dealt with the "unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit") and making it cohesive. I got thee opportunity to sit in church with my wife and grandson, and we listened to Pastor Paul from our Korean church that meets in our building. I think that we as a congregation have been very blessed. The rest of the day was quiet, spending some time with my grandson playing cards (rummy and Russian rummy) outside on the porch. It's nice to be able to do that for a change. The temperature was in the sixties all day, quite pleasant.

I am actually nit being pressured by my boss or anyone in this company to leave, but it is starting to look a little grim for having work to do here. I found out that there is more effort going on to figure out the funding for the MPC project and that we still have not heard back on the COC proposal yet. Both of those things, along with knowing that I will not be picked up by IT anytime soon makes looking on the outside more attractive every day. I have no way of knowing whether these questions will be answered before the end of the month or not. I have to overcome the fear I feel. Lord please help me make the right decision on this!!! Amen.

In the LAB commentary it says that "teachers are clear thinkers." that may be true but my self assessment is that I do not think clearly. Maybe I am but I just envision myself differently. I must learn to trust in the Lord's judgement of me and not believe my own standard. I think in my case maybe I have a lower opinion of myself than what the Lord thinks I am capable of. He sees the final product, and knows what I am capable of doing. I should learn to trust Him.

I am thinking of trying out for some Bible teaching positions at the local Equip Institute (part of Washington Bible College). I have taught Bible at my local Bible Church for about 9 years now. I am sure that I would have no problem teaching just about anything they would throw my way. What the issue is, I do not have a degree from a Bible College. They may frown on my background in engineering and management. But I consider them relavent to the undertaking. I have learned quite a lot about teaching over the years since I started, and I owe some of my tenacity to my current degrees.

The Wolverton class went well this morning. I didn't have to teach but Doug did an outstanding job conveying what could have been a difficult subject. He started by going back over what we had already studied in the book of Luke to orient everyone. He then went over the lesson for the day from Luke 7:36-50 concerning Simon the Pharisee. I had never thought about the fact that Simon may have been sent to spy out what Jesus was up to. Just from the way that Jesus was treated gives you an indication of his actual purpose. But, Jesus gives him an object lesson which probably fell short of the intended goal. However, we now have the story to go by and understand the overall lesson. I really got a lot out of the story to think about.

Wow, decided to not worry any more about the job situation and concentrate on the work at hand. I'm getting a lot of Perl coding done this morning as a result. I have been having a nagging problem with a record focus issue and it is really gelling now. I think it is true that a lot of issues we face are worries that are just in our minds, not really things we should worry about. The Lord would have not brought me this far without giving me the background to accomplish what I need to do. Perhaps this was a test to see if I would trust Him. I think that I may have passed this time.