Devotions for Teachers: Pay Attention

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil

Ephesians 5:15-16

My pastor said something that hit me square in the feelings this Sunday, and I have been thinking obsessively about it sense. I felt the need to share it with you all:

No moment is neutral.

Is that a radical though to anyone else? Every moment of your day is an opportunity. You can choose to make that moment holy, or let it go to waste. And in the age of technology (of which I am very happy to be a part of), we are letting many moments go to waste by simply not paying attention.

When I think through a typical morning, I wake up, brew some coffee, and dive right into work. Sometimes I pause for some Bible reading or prayer, but sometimes I feel far too anxious about all I need to get done that day with kids under my feet. So I choose to work instead. My phone is at my side, distracting me every time my screen lights up.

I take my phone and laptop into the kitchen with me, where I will make breakfast for my kids, and often turn the TV on for them so I can wrap up a few work items while they are distracted. I am intentionally teaching them to distract themselves from me and from each other, just in the name of getting more things done.

I scroll through my phone while my kids watch TV. I read emails and work on my store while they’re playing with toys. Last year, I would be mid-sentence during a lesson and hear the ding of en email hitting my inbox, and make a point to look at what it was, even if I was across the room. We are distracted. And we are letting so many moments go to waste.

Now, I’m a work-from-home mom. Part of this is just the reality of my life right now. Do I create space in my day to play with my kids? Sure. And there are days where I think even Jesus would look at all that’s on my plate and pat me on the head for doing the absolute best with the hours I’ve been given. I’m not here to pile on the mom/wife/teacher guilt in any capacity. My work is an opportunity, too. Every word I write in an email is an opportunity to give that person a feel for my reputation, integrity, and kindness. Every product I make is an opportunity to share a bit of myself and my passion for teaching with another teacher who may be struggling in that area. Just because I passed up legos on the floor with my kids for a few minutes of work doesn’t mean that I missed an opportunity. I simply chose a different opportunity, and that’s not inherently a bad thing.

But are there days where my heart’s not really in my work, and I mindlessly scroll through Instagram for 25 minutes instead of focusing on my work? Are there times where I know my work is “done” for the evening, and I could be snuggling my kids on the couch before bedtime, but instead I’m looking through Twitter? Yes and yes.

The thing about making every moment holy, is you have to be in charge. You can miss the next hilarious thing your child says, or the next brilliant stroke of teaching inspiration, because you let the technology in your life boss you around. You compulsively picked up your phone, even though you already looked through your feed 5 minutes ago. You cross the room to check that email, because what if it’s your principal? You spend your lunch break looking through social media to “unwind” instead of eating with a coworker. You multitask during lunch with a student by trying to grade papers as they are telling you a story. We miss valuable moments to shape someone’s life or make a tiny impact every day because we are distracted with all of the busy.

And, as my pastor pointed out this weekend, Paul warned the Ephesians about this (and they hated him a whole lot, so you know it was Jesus speaking through him for him to be brave enough to try to tell those people how to live their lives). He told them that the days are evil. That is an extremely strong word choice, IMO. But he’s right. Letting life tell you where to go with each day without setting intention or focusing on the moments you’re living in will not get you far. He clearly wasn’t referring to Facebook, but shiny object syndrome has been around way before the iPhone. People have always had a problem with focusing on one thing or one person at a time. We want to achieve it all, have success, be the teacher of the year, stay on top of our communication…and we want to do it all quickly. And the effect of that rushing and none of the pausing can be broken relationships, lost moments of connection, loneliness, discontent, and so much more. And those things in combination really are straight-up evil. They are not what God intended for our lives.

So today, my prayer for all of us is that we find a handful of moments this week to make Holy, rather than letting them fall to waste. For me, that may look like putting my phone in a drawer during our bedtime routine, so I don’t even know when I get a notification. However it looks for you, I pray that you get a few joyful moments out of it that redirect your brain towards the people you love.

Have a great, blessed, hopeful week, teacher friends.