I just brewed a pot of Door County Private Reserve Coffee, poured a big cup into a favorite mug of mine and opened my Bible. Now and then you need your coffee in a feel good mug.
From where I sit in the second story of our home I can see the bright sunshine glistening on the icy landscape. Several of our neighbors have their fireplaces lit and the smoke is going straight up into the air. My plan is to imitate them tonight and light a fire a couple of hours before going to bed and enjoy the warmth. This sounds crazy, but I will go outside for a few minutes after the fire is going strong and just take in the smell of some hard wood smoke. I have personal reasons for doing so and the smoke will fill my mind and heart with memories that are never to be forgotten.
Earth spins on an axis that allows us to orbit the sun and that gives us day and night. That's about as far as this non-scientific brain wants to go with this knowledge. I just need to know that the sun comes up in the morning and it sets in the evening. I know that many people have volumes of knowledge stored within their brains about the Earth Sciences and I am glad that they do.
One thing I am sure they know is just how fast the Earth is turning each day, each hour and every minute. What I am about to write about to us today is that I feel like the Earth is spinning too fast. It just seems as if there is never enough time in one day to accomplish all that needs to be done. Friends, this is a play on words and the Earth hasn't sped up, but we have. I feel like I want to treat the world like a bus and get off at the next stop for awhile and just watch it drive by for a day or two.
I was just thinking about a family from church who I have not seen or heard from in quite some time. I sat in shame thinking that I just haven't had the time to call on them. They gave me the mug pictured above. This is inexcusable as we are to care for one another. The world is not going to slow down or stop for me to catch up. If it could, I would be slamming the brakes on it in a heartbeat.
So here is what I did. I looked back on this last week. I keep a pretty good calendar record and I saw the problem. I overloaded my own calendar. There were double bookings all week long at work and in my personal life. Some of those things that were double booked were choices I made just to satisfy others and they really could of waited a few more days. I actually put my own world into overdrive and hit the gas. Proper meals were not prepared and eaten because of a lack of time. All that did was shorten this already busy life by eating junk.
So my administrative assistant and I will talk tomorrow and there will not be any more rushed double bookings. She will have permission to say no to those requiring attention or refer them to me. A sensible calendar will be kept by priority and first come basis. She does a great job of this. I am the one who double books. Then for my personal calendar I have made the decision to drop a couple of things from my list and learn to delegate to others. For instance a friend of mine thinks we should have a reunion of old friends. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. But any more than a couple hours of planning heaps way too much on an already full plate at church. I can offer a couple hours and if it is to be, a committee will need to be formed and they will have to run with it.
Luke 14:28 New King James Version (NKJV)
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—
Priorities my friends, priorities. As much as we need to balance our budgets to not get overdrawn at the bank, we need to balance our schedules in the same way. We can't borrow time from the next day. It just gets us more behind.
Think about it. Is your world spinning too fast? You can slow it down. Ask yourself questions. Do I have enough time for this? What needs to go in order to take this on? Why does this need to be done by me at all? Can this or should this be done by someone else? Am I teaching others to fish for themselves or am I teaching them to learn to be helpless? Tomorrow I will talk to parents, pastors, and grandparents who are teaching "applied uselessness". That subject is long overdue.
God bless,
Marty
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