Lamborghinis, Lions, and Prayer

I often think about the sign over the chapel at Domino's Farms. It says something like, "Prayer takes time and saints pray and get more done in less time." That is my lifeline these days. God honors that. I give him time I don't think I can afford for prayer, and he inspires me to do better in less time than I thought possible. Today was a good example.

Last night a slogged through creating an exercise for the students to practice identifying direct objects. It was woefully, grindingly, wearisome to write and equally dreadful as a boring grammar lesson. It will have to do, I concluded, and went to bed.

This morning I woke up and began my prayer time. As often happens, right in the middle of prayer, I got the inspiration I needed for direct objects. Who would have thought that God cared about making direct objects fun? My first thought was whether I could get it prepared on time, but my second thought was that it was inspired and I could figure it out. I wrote out most of it while I ate my breakfast, instead of reading the Wall Street Journal, which didn't happen to be available that day because Jack had already taken it with him to work.

I was easily ready by class time, energized to teach, and eager to see the surprise and delight on each students' face. I announced that for each of the 26 students, I had 26 sentences with direct objects in them. I was going to go around the room and read a sentence for each student. They were to identify what the action was (the verb), who was doing the action (the subject) and who or what was receiving the action (the direct object). The response to these directions was less than enthusiastic, but within three sentences the whole class's attention was riveted on what the next sentence would be. It was hard to wait for their turn.

So what was inspired about that? Well, each sentence made a story, and the students were included in it. And of course Star Wars blasters, a mountain lion, and a Lamborghini helped. God does care about direct objects, and he does have a sense of humor.