Tuesday, September 21, 2010
FINDING OUR PLACE IN THE BUSY-NESS OF LIFE
It's quite easy in this life to just get overwhelmed. We are constantly bombarded with demands for our time and attention. Those can be demands from our children, jobs, and spouse. Or they can be demands from today's information age which call us to always research and learn and spend time in various ways.
It's not unusual to hear folks say that they are pulled in too many directions, and that there are not enough hours in the day. It's not a good feeling and we've all experienced it. It forces us to try to do more ... to sleep less ... to take less care of ourselves. All of this in an effort to keep up with the demands of living in the 21st century.
I'm not sure there is an easy answer to any of this. Fact is, those demands will continue to be there and will even increase. Fact is, we do have certain responsibilities to family, jobs, community and our selves. Falling back on these responsibilities lessens our wholeness by making us feel guilty and, at its worse, even unfulfilled.
The key, and I am not very good at this, seems to be in prioritizing things -- getting the big rocks in first. If we don't get the big rocks into our buckets first, then the bucket fills up with sand and gravel and the important things must be left out.
But I think that, despite the importance of prioritizing, there's something more important here and that is realizing that our heavenly father loves us and yearns for us. As we seek Him and His direction on our lives, He will show us what our big rocks are -- what those things are that must be highest priority in our lives.
But, even bigger than that, He provides us our self worth. Once we know that our worth comes to us inherently and unquestioningly because the Creator of all things created us, we can begin to make sure that the things we do in this world are about helping others ... about making the world a better place. That's a whole lot different than doing things that are about making others happy.
Of course, there will be overlap between things that help others and things that make others happy but that realization and awareness that we do the things we do not because we want to serve our own egos but because we are called to carry God's love into the world -- the One who loves us calls us to share His love with the world -- things change. Our mindsets and paradigms shift when we operate in this crazy busy world from a position of doing it for ourselves to a position of being a conduit of God's love, mercy and grace.
May today we all find ourselves as that conduit -- that vessel -- that works in the world in which we're blessed to live with the calling that we're here to help and love on others.
God living in and through us changes everything.
It's not unusual to hear folks say that they are pulled in too many directions, and that there are not enough hours in the day. It's not a good feeling and we've all experienced it. It forces us to try to do more ... to sleep less ... to take less care of ourselves. All of this in an effort to keep up with the demands of living in the 21st century.
I'm not sure there is an easy answer to any of this. Fact is, those demands will continue to be there and will even increase. Fact is, we do have certain responsibilities to family, jobs, community and our selves. Falling back on these responsibilities lessens our wholeness by making us feel guilty and, at its worse, even unfulfilled.
The key, and I am not very good at this, seems to be in prioritizing things -- getting the big rocks in first. If we don't get the big rocks into our buckets first, then the bucket fills up with sand and gravel and the important things must be left out.
But I think that, despite the importance of prioritizing, there's something more important here and that is realizing that our heavenly father loves us and yearns for us. As we seek Him and His direction on our lives, He will show us what our big rocks are -- what those things are that must be highest priority in our lives.
But, even bigger than that, He provides us our self worth. Once we know that our worth comes to us inherently and unquestioningly because the Creator of all things created us, we can begin to make sure that the things we do in this world are about helping others ... about making the world a better place. That's a whole lot different than doing things that are about making others happy.
Of course, there will be overlap between things that help others and things that make others happy but that realization and awareness that we do the things we do not because we want to serve our own egos but because we are called to carry God's love into the world -- the One who loves us calls us to share His love with the world -- things change. Our mindsets and paradigms shift when we operate in this crazy busy world from a position of doing it for ourselves to a position of being a conduit of God's love, mercy and grace.
May today we all find ourselves as that conduit -- that vessel -- that works in the world in which we're blessed to live with the calling that we're here to help and love on others.
God living in and through us changes everything.
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