4jlkelly

Tag: busy

  • GO. Day 13 of Lent. Wisdom from Dr. Seuss.

    GO. Day 12 of Lent. Wisdom from Dr. Seuss.

    oh the places you'll go

    Remember what Dr. Seuss taught us all in Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

    The story begins with the decision of the unnamed protagonist to leave town and take a journey. The protagonist travels through several geometrical and polychromatic landscapes and places, eventually encountering  “The Waiting Place”.

    ..for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite  or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.  Everyone is just waiting.

    This last book by Dr. Seuss was written in 1990. And I wonder if today the phraseology wouldn’t have been, “The busy place” for people just busy. Busy on cellphones or tablets or laptops, we’re all busy tweeting or skyping or instagraming, watching our Netflix and following blogs, drinking our StarBucks and GPSing in cars, busy going here and taking us there, glorifying busy, busy everywhere.

    Busy is never an excuse for procrastinating and not “going” where God calls us. Good things are often the enemy of God’s best and waiting always serves a purpose in our journey.  It produces anticipation and provides time for planning.  No one naturally wants to wait so the task requires sacrificing our selfish desires and placing our trust in God’s timing. Waiting can be a protection and waiting patiently indicates maturity.

    The lessons I always come away with in this story are:

    You have to start to finish – “You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!”

    God provides what you need– “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”

    Stay balanced to succeed “So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.

    Persevere through fear -“All Alone!  Whether you like it or not,  Alone will be something  you’ll be quite a lot. And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance  you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.”

    Gratitude lifts the spirit-“When you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”

    Waiting is the mean time of faith-“You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
    headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
    The Waiting Place…”

     

    Get your copy of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

  • pre-game intentionality Romans 12:1-2

    So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2
    The Message

    in·ten·tion·al
    adjective
    done on purpose; deliberate.

    The glorification of the word busy is something I recently determined needed to be stopped.  But how?  i still have a great deal to do, more ‘to do’ than time to ‘do it’ in.  And all this ‘busyness’ just as the definition determines does keep me occupied.  And I spend my most valued commodity: time-immersed in this unintentional busyness with nothing but the sweat on my brow to show for it at the 11th hour and then i’m too exhausted to do what really matters.  It’s frustrating.  That we are all so ‘well adjusted to our culture that we’re fitting in without even thinking about it’ as Romans 12 warns us.   Living life  ‘without even thinking’ is the chaos the world seems to lock us in and it’s mantra is ‘I’m busy’. Doing what?  All this stuff.  What stuff?  I don’t know, life stuff.  I don’t know is the problem.  We’re thoughtlessly going about life. Stuck in unintentional busyness.  And we do glorify it, constantly. “I’m so busy!”   And as I considered the words of Romans 12:1-2 thoughtfully, the first step is to re-focus.  To fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ instead of all this thoughtless doing and recognize what He wants from me.  Today, I was determined to change.  First step-intention-get serious about it with some thoughtful pre-planning so tomorrow I don’t start the bad habit all over again which Eugene Peterson describes as our cultures’ immaturity problem.  Fixing my attention on God I asked for change from the inside out.  Knowing God is the One capable of re-ordering my thinking (knowing the truth instead of believing the lie), feeling (understanding this is God’s will for me & trusting Him) and doing (committing to it actively) and that God alone will bring out the best in the way He uniquely designed me–we’re talking about His plans (prayer).   God is lovingly calling me to pursue time with Him so we can figure this strategy out together.  So we’re in the pre-game of this living life ‘with much thought’ intentionality of seizing the day-Carpi Diem.   It’s the call to give our time to God as an offering (something we offer up that has a cost associated with it) and let Him make the most of the minutes.   Because the command is accompanied with the promise- we will recognize God’s will.  We’ll get direction.  We’ll be driven by God’s purpose and God will bring out the best of us.   Be intentional.  It’s a high calling.