Progress Reports

It’s that time of the year again. Not only is it the beginning of a new calendar year, but it is also midpoint for the school year. It is that time when we take a good hard look at out students, assess their progress, and then sit down to share with the parents the progress their child is making. For the past week or so the teachers at Wonder Club have been “testing” the children on their knowledge of numbers and letters, colors and shapes, and all sorts of other early learning and kindergarten skills. Their main concern: is to have an accurate and realistic picture when they sit down to share with the parents just what each child knows and how well prepared he/she will be for kindergarten or first grade next fall.

As I was driving to school one day this week, I was reflecting on how thorough the teachers are with their assessments and how careful they are to give an accurate picture. I couldn’t help but wonder: What kind of progress report would God give me if we sat down for a conference? How would He assess my knowledge of Him? What would He say about my social and emotional relationships? What would my spiritual growth and development look like? There’s no doubt about it – He would be accurate and thorough and quite truthful in His assessment. I wonder how I would respond to my progress report from God.

Recently I had an opportunity to evaluate my spiritual progress. At our church on the last Sunday of December, we always have an opportunity to fill out a 3x5 card with one or two prayer requests we have for the coming year. These cards are then put into an envelope which we address to ourselves and seal. The envelopes are collected and the church office staff and prayer teams faithfully pray for the requests every week (even though they don’t see the actual requests). In early November they are mailed to us. As part of our celebration at the end of the year, we share testimonies of how God has worked in our lives. It is always interesting to see how God has answered our prayers during the past year, even though the answer may have been “not yet” or “no”. And often we see that God has faithfully gone over and beyond what we asked.

Well, this year the pastor asked us to take a spiritual inventory before we wrote our prayer requests. We were asked to divide our card into 3 columns and label them past, present, and future. Then we spent a few minutes on the first column listing all the blessings we already have. We looked at what is currently happening in our lives, and finally what we would like to see happen in the future. After we had completed that little spiritual inventory, we were told to turn the card over and write our requests for the year. Next November when we get the cards back, we will be able to see how we viewed our spiritual lives at the end of 2006 and whether or not we have made progress in 2007. Now that’s a progress report!

-Lorraine Brandt, Wonder Club