Monday, November 28, 2011

Lists

            I operate from daily to-do lists. Do you? Making out my list not only helps me remember the things ahead but to prioritize them. Deadlines are their most menacing when you’ve let them get so close that they smother you into inactivity.
            The list I’m working on right now actually covers more than just today. There are some complex and interrelated issues that are going to take several days to unravel – if they can be unraveled. So they are on the list in priority positions.
            I try to keep each list reasonably short. As the number of items on my to-do list grows, the ability to manage my time effectively diminishes. Referring back to the list imposes discipline on my day and holds me to my tasks. “Planning is of no use at all,” says Peter Drucker, “unless it eventually degenerates into work.”
            There are two other lists I keep as well. These aren’t always written down in a notebook. Yet I carry them with me everywhere I go. And the strange thing is that each has the power to cancel out the other. One shrinks as the other grows.
            My worry list tends to be composed of things that are beyond my power to control. So crisis events, others’ demands on me, and things I’d like to bring under my control make this list. These are the things that distract me during the day and keep me awake at night. They seldom generate anything productive, for the idea that I can bring life under my personal control is only a delusion.
            My prayer list is made up of the people, situations, and events I choose to surrender to God. These are the things I know I can’t handle. They are too big and too important for me to try force them to an outcome I can dictate.
            See why they cancel out one another? Anything I’ve given over to God doesn’t have to be fretted over. He’s competent enough to handle it. So long as I am trying to bring things under my personal control, though, I run the risk of fighting not only the defiant realities around me but God’s will for my life. The more praying I do, the less power worry has to interrupt my strength or sleep.
            The Bible presents this challenge: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 NRSV).
            The more items that get moved off your worry list onto your prayer list, the better off you’ll be. God will graciously replace your anxiety with his peace.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

This, Too, Shall Pass!

            What shall I write for Thanksgiving Day this year? I have been wondering for several days. These are not the best of times. Lots of people are hurting. Political leadership is in short supply. Headlines tend to be negative and discouraging. So is there anything to be grateful for when we gather around the table Thursday?
            Maybe this is worth some thoughtful reflection this year: This, too, shall pass.
            The truth is that nothing in this world is going to last very long. Recession, war, cancer, migraines, an ogre for a boss, a physics class – not one of them is going to last forever. Of course, we are usually thinking about beautiful sunsets, ice cream at picnics, or extended family around the Thanksgiving Day table and lamenting those when we comment about things that are too short-lived.
            But the same is true of life’s setbacks and heartaches as well.
            The longest of human lives are incredibly short – when measured against eternity. David said it 3,000 years ago: “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered – how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath” (Psalm 39:4-5 NLT).
            Perhaps it would help all of us to keep more things in perspective to realize that the good and the bad, the best days and the worst, or the achievements and the embarrassments are always less than they seem to be at the moment. The person who takes the positives too seriously is in danger of arrogance; the one who thinks a failure or humiliation is forever falls prey to depression and despair.
            For every good thing, give thanks to God. For every transgression, receive his forgiveness. In sickness, loss, and grief, accept his daily grace and strength.
            It isn’t just that I see it in others. This tendency to see too much that is negative and to live with needless stress is too much within my own personality. So one of the items on my list of things for which to be thankful this Thursday will be that life is transient. Successes are only momentary. Failures need not be viewed as permanent either. There is a certain element of relief in knowing that nothing in this human experience is forever.
            When I was just a little boy, I remember an old fellow saying – with a twinkle in his eye – that his favorite part of the Bible was this line: “And it came to pass.” Maybe I’ve had to live nearly as long as he did to get his point.
            Two verses later in the Psalm quoted above comes this: “And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.”
            Come Thanksgiving this Thursday, I will remember that – and be grateful.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Your Attitude Makes the Difference


            Attitude isn’t everything, but it’s probably more important than most of the things to which we assign our daily outcomes. The person inclined to whine that others have gotten more breaks or to excuse his failure or poor performance by blaming someone else is likely sabotaging himself with a sorry outlook on things.
            Many things about your life are simply the hand you have been dealt. You can’t change the fact that you were born in that place and with certain givens for your appearance, IQ, or natural skills. Education and training can open some doors for you, but they cannot change your past, make you taller and more athletic, or alter the fact that some people are unfair in the way they treat you.
            The one thing you can do something about is how you choose to respond to your life circumstances. Even Jesus couldn’t control what other people thought and said about him. But he refused to let them dictate his spirit and behavior.
            There is a section in John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer that reads . . .

       Teach me, O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life today that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin.
            Let me use disappointment as material for patience;
            Let me use success as material for thankfulness;
            Let me use suspense as material for perseverance;
            Let me use danger as material for courage;
            Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering;
            Let me use praise as material for humility;
            Let me use pleasures as material for temperance;
            Let me use pains as material for endurance.

            What enables everything in one’s life to generate “the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin”? What can turn such negatives as disappointment, anxiety, and criticism into positive outcomes? And what can keep success, praise, and reward from becoming pride? Your attitude makes the difference.
            When a given day begins, countless things are headed your way over which you have no control. It may be bad weather or someone’s bad temper, a deadline that won’t budge or a client equally resistant to a new idea. The one factor you can control through it all is your attitude toward them.
            The difference in today being a good day or a bad one will be your attitude.
           

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A Sure-Fire Investment


            I am convinced most people want to do some great thing with their lives. But they are under the illusion that the doing of authentically great things is reserved for a chosen few. Heroes. Martyrs. Saints. But not them.
            But what if the greatest thing is not to go out in a blaze of glory but to honor God with a life that consistently seeks to do his will in the little things? Not to climb the highest mountain but to stay on the uneven course that life has marked out for you? Not dying for your faith but staying true to it over a difficult lifetime?
            Think of the 24-hour blocks of your life as bank-fresh bundles of a hundred $1 bills. Your challenge each day is to spend your life. You can’t bank it. You can’t save up until you get 500 or 1000. You get a fresh handful of life currency each morning, and any unspent balance evaporates before tomorrow comes.
            You spend life assets when you mentor a new employee who is struggling, listen to someone who is upset, or volunteer to help someone catch up.
            You are laying down your life when you are generous with hard-earned money to help someone who has lost her job, a family that is being drained by long-term illness, or the ministries of your church.
            You have plunked down a huge chunk of your life in giving birth, praying through your tears for a struggling child, and investing all the time, energy, and passion that go into molding a life for what lies ahead in this challenging world.
            You are spending your life capital by putting your love for a fiancĂ©e, mate, or child above career advancement that moves you away from spiritual stability, calls for you to spend far too much time away from people who need you more than money, or calls for you to compromise a central value you have embraced.
            The Bible says: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16).
            Could it be that there are people who would die in bold, heroic moments (i.e., “cash in” everything) who just don’t grasp that we must spend the smaller increments of our lives in unselfish, other-directed events that honor God by serving the people he has placed on our paths? What a shame that they never developed a concept of serving God by serving men and women in his image!
            You have today’s life capital in hand. Invest it wisely – in small increments of unselfishness here and there. Or lose it completely.