Shuffling Around

Our house is full of life as we have three teenage daughters and three dogs living cozily together. Two of the dogs are puppies filled with energy and enthusiasm while one is an old dog without much of either. Our scruffy old dog (his name is Zeddie) sleeps most of the day when he isn't following my wife around the house or yapping when the two pups get too close to him. He also has this annoying habit of continually trying to move his pillow and dog bed around. Zeddie will work gruntingly for several minutes trying to arrange things to his liking and end up in nearly the same place as when we began. I've watched him pull his bed with his front paws as he tries to move it into the perfect position before finally collapsing into it. I'm not sure if he just gave up because it was too frustrating or if he actually believed that his hard work had produced an outcome (which it clearly had not.)

This method of solving discontent can be frustrating and wasteful. How often do we exert great levels of energy to move things around only to discover our efforts haven't produced anything? How many times have we instituted personal changes before finding out we haven't really gone anywhere at all? Instead of wasting our energy and being frustrated at the lack of results perhaps we should pause to carefully assess the reason for our discontent. Then we can begin to decide where we can make small tweaks that will alleviate some of the pressure we are feeling. We might find that it only takes a few small adjustments to make things better. It's certainly a better approach than moving rapidly without any idea of direction.

The Right Ditch

I believe there are times when we need to put in extra effort to make a difference. It may be a crisis which needs our attention or a festering weakness which must be addressed. The truth is sometimes there is no substitute for hard work.

The key to hard work being effective is to make sure it's focused in the right area. Putting all our increased emphasis in the wrong direction will make us look busy, but it won't solve the problem. It's like needing a ditch to be dug that runs from north to south while we're digging one that runs from east to west. Increasing our pace, shortening our breaks, and using a bigger shovel brings the appearance of productivity while neglecting the real issue.

Don't be afraid to work hard, but make sure it's the right work too.

Waste Management

Yesterday I wrote about the things that take up our time that might be misconstrued as time wasters even though they are beneficial (read that here.) Today we want to look at those things that actually drain energy from us. These might indicate ways that we squander our time and influence without realizing what we are doing.

We waste time when we:

• Allow forgiven sin to continue to cause us shame. When we genuinely confess sin to God and seek His forgiveness, we have to leave that in our past. God has cleared the slate and we only damage ourselves when we continue to stay sorrowful once we are forgiven.
  
• Make the same repeated mistakes without learning from them. We are all imperfect and will stumble in our thoughts, words, and actions. When we continue to do the same foolish things we are proving our own stubbornness and causing tremendous damage to ourselves and those close to us.
  
• Ignore opportunities to share Christ with people around us. God is constantly placing people in our path (divine appointments) and we can choose to ignore these moments due to lack of recognition, fear of rejection, or apathy. This is wasting our personal story and a chance to change someone's life for eternity.
  
• Fill our schedules with busyness that has no eternal impact. We can inflate our own ego by having a personal agenda that keeps us constantly moving but never influences the Kingdom. We waste tremendous time when we are consumed with creating a persona that has the appearance of impact, but really only satisfies our ego and deep need to feel valued.
  
• Fail to see the value in our loved ones. We have a limited number of conversations, times of investment, and experiences with the people we love. We can choose to use each one wisely or allow our emotional state to short circuit these by either causing negative impact or having zero influence at all.
  
• Put off what God is calling us to be part of. God will work through our choices and even our inaction, but we often fail to realize the significance of each day's opportunity to mature and develo our faith. 

We can work to eliminate the obvious small-impact time wasters in our life, but are we willing to tackle the difficult areas?

Wasted

We all have ways of wasting time by doing things that distract us from our purpose and derail us in pursuit of our goals. Some are deliberate while others are only recognized after the time is gone. It can be confusing sometimes as we may mistakenly mis-evaluate things as interruptions and distractions when they are actually pushing us in the right direction. These are things we do where we might feel we are being wasteful when they are actually beneficial to us. 

It's never a waste of our time when we:

• Have seemingly directionless conversations with our children. This is time that can not be recovered once it is gone and we should value even the silly moments while we have them. 
• Have quiet moments with our spouses. There doesn't always have to be a conversation for time together to be renewing. 
• Invest in someone else. We should have someone that we are pouring energy into through prayer, conversation, and accountability. Immediate results may not be seen, but we need to be faithful to the intention of developing others. 
• Rest. When this is used as justification for laziness we have missed the real meaning of taking a (brief) break. Rest is essential if we are going to operate at full strength and use our gifts & talents wisely. 
• Practice silence. I have learned the hard way that you don't always have to speak to be heard. You can gain more insight and often offer more wisdom by observing & choosing the best time to interject. 
• Praying. This seems fairly obvious, but when we pray without seeing the results we are asking for it can be frustrating. Know that even if you don't receive the response you think you should, the discipline of prayer is building you up spiritually. 

Tomorrow's blog will examine the ways that we actually waste our time and how we can limit those negative practices. 

Tunnel Vision

In the book of Acts there were Jewish leaders who wanted the apostle Paul dead for his conversion & missionary lifestyle. As far as they were concerned he was a traitor to the Jewish faith and since they could not stop the positive effect he was having on God's Kingdom, they decided to kill him. Circumstances led to Paul being imprisoned and left unable to travel or speak publicly to share the truth of Christ. Most of us would tend to neglect Paul at this point and pull back on the ferocity of our attacks on him. The Jewish leaders refused to do this, but were instead pushing hard for his death two years after he had been locked up.

As I read this I found myself thinking about the life of these religious leaders during those two years. What other things did they forsake in that time because they were so focused on ruining Paul? What needs in their family & community did they miss because they were consumed with ill-conceived notions of revenge? While we might agree that these leaders were overzealous it might help us to examine our own obsessions. Where do we place our passions that ends up being a waste of time? How do we reconcile these wasted efforts in light of the bigger picture of need for our families, churches, and communities?