SUPERMAN REALITY CHECK!!!

Here is my "fountainhead" Scripture: Philippians 1:6

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It was a good day to be in the house of God today. We woke up to 61 deg weather, the sun fully shining and we headed off to church, chipper to learn something new this morning.

The children of the church all sat in the first three pews and listened to the music. I was in the row behind them. During the greeting part, the boys' teacher came to me and praised our boys. While I did make a couple threats for good behavior prior to church, it was true, they were good boys. I'm very proud of my sons and love them very much. Anybody who knows me for very long knows my love for my children. They are my Achilles Heel. So, at this point, I'm a bit puffed up as I sit back into the pew for a sermon. "Yep", I told myself, "I had done a good job of parenting."

Was I in for a reality check!!!! Have you ever heard that story of Muhammed Ali where he's on a flight and the stewardess asks him to put on a seatbelt? Boastingly, he says to her, "Lady, I'm Superman, I don't need no seatbelt." Being quick-witted, the stewardess replies to him, "Superman, you don't need no airplane. Now, buckle-up." What she gave him was a reality check!! And for the next 45 min, God proceeded to give me a reality check.

In most areas of my life, I am humble, except when it comes to taking credit for having good children. It's true, I sacrificed my education and career to stay home. It's true, I gave up mornings with the Today show and afternoons with Oprah to homeschool. It's true, I was considered for sainthood for teaching 1-6th graders for a couple years, by myself, walking uphill both ways, in 6 ft snow drifts. LOL

But then I looked in my Bible and saw words like "made himself nothing, taking on the nature of a servant" (Phi 2:7). "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." (3:7) Paul was essentially a PhD of his time with of pure lineage, yet he gave perspective that it meant nothing. It was dung compared to winning Christ in his life. "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead" (3:13) - I had to give up the notion that my education was what qualified me to be a homeschool mom. Truth is, it is ALL CHRIST. (3:21) He changed my lowly body into a glorious one for His glory.

If the boys were stand-outs in their class, it wasn't because of me and my degree. It wasn't because they completed the Miss Manner's Course for Children that *I* taught them. It wasn't even because I had disciplined myself to talk in a happy voice for the past 24 hrs. It was because Christ changed ME & JACK and Christ was now our family's focus. We give thanks for meals, Bible is a subject in our home and prayer is a daily requirements like brushing teeth. God began a good work in me and now He was going to carry it on in my children.

It has been said that pride is the only disease that makes everyone else sick but the one that has it. I never want to get in the way of God's work of raising fishermen. Next time somebody compliments my children, I shall sit in the pew and thank God for doing a great job. Even Muhammed Ali got his reality check.........eventually.