How My Cancelled Bangladesh Class is a Blessing

January 12, 2015

I envisioned myself packing textbooks, lesson-plans, and worksheets for two college classes in Bangladesh this morning…instead I’m sending emails explaining why it was cancelled.

To make a long story short, rival political parties have set up blockades in large cities keeping people from coming through until their demands are met. This would create serious problems for my students who have to travel from the far Northern region of Bangladesh to the Southern region.

Since the students safety is the most important thing the decision was made to cancel my class.

The strange thing is instead of being upset or angry about the situation I’m actually happy because that class challenged me to pursue something with excellence.

Sadly excellence is something few of us experience in life:

1. It takes lots of extra energy
2. Ridiculous amounts of patience [1]
3. Countless hours of practice
4. An attitude that refuses to be satisfied
5. And tons of hard work

I believe the major reason why so many of us don’t do excellent things isn’t because we are too lazy, but we are just too busy.

Or maybe a better way of saying that is we THINK we are too busy.

That’s why God brings situations into our lives that forces us to be excellent

Teaching two college-level [2] classes in two-weeks was one of those things for me. Over the last four weeks I:

1. Went through forty-sessions in a Christology [3] textbook
2. Created forty lesson plans for the class
3. Made forty power-points to go along with the lessons
4. Broke seven movies down into their literary structure and theme
5. Made twenty quizzes, and two final exams
6. Read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis,
7. and created power-points that give an overview of the book

In other words I pursued excellence…because I had to

Which raises a question; “why do I have to be forced to pursue excellence?” The simple answer is, “I don’t have enough time,” but I MADE TIME for those two Bangladesh classes.

So maybe the answer isn’t “I don’t have time,” but more like “I don’t want to.”

The last three weeks have taught me excellence is possible [4]. So I’m thankful my Bangladesh classes were cancelled. If nothing else they showed me what I could do.

Of course not every aspect of life can be done with excellence (we definitely don’t have time for that) but there are many tasks that deserve excellence…and using the same old “I don’t time” excuse just won’t cut it.

The question isn’t whether or not we can live a life of excellence…the question whether or not we are willing to pay the price for it.