Highlighting Lesson

A reading strategy we use to help students figure out the main idea of a passage is to use highlighters.  We often ask them to highlight the most important messages the author would like the reader to receive.  Interestingly, many students struggle with this skill.  I find that most kids, without guidance, end up highlighting everything.  To them, everything is important.  Their papers look like a rainbow of colored words.  Learning to separate what's most important is not as easy as it sounds.  Just like middle schoolers, in life, sometimes I find myself focusing on everything that is going on, and my days become a rainbow of worries and overwhelming emotions.  Finding the main idea of life requires moments of focus and reflection, if not we can find ourselves completely burned out.  

So, this is the question, how do we highlight what is important and let go of what is not?

  Technically, everything is important. If it weren't the author would not have included it.  Each period, article, punctuation, although seemingly less significant, are vital to the communication of the message. Likewise, the details of our lives are not meant to overwhelm us, but to point us to something greater.  In life, details must be attended, but they must not distract us from the author's purpose.

God is a great teacher.  He uses object lessons to teach us what we individually need to learn.  As we make ourselves available to become His student, we become less overwhelmed with the details and more concerned with one thing, becoming more like Him.

As He becomes the center of our lives, the details, although important, do not replace Him, but rather lead us to Him.