Most mornings as I am laying in my bed trying to motivate myself to get up, I say a prayer that sounds something like this: "God I will never get the opportunity to live this day over again, please don't let me waste it!" This prayer reminds me of Paul's encouragement in 2 Corinthians 6 (the Message) "we beg you, please don't squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us."
I used to think that the answer to that prayer was me becoming more productive. I needed to work harder and smarter. It was all about how much I accomplished each day. How much on my To-do-list did I get accomplished? The problems with that approach were: 1. I usually had more "To-do-list" than I had time in the day and 2. I always had this nagging suspicion that I didn't have the right things on my list.
I heard a minister ask a "profound yet troubling" question in a message once. "At the end of the day the question isn't "What did I accomplish today, but who did I disciple today?" I had a big problem with that one, because discipling people wasn't on my list. His words reminded me of 1 Corinthians 10 (the Message) "We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well."
I have had some amazing opportunities in the past couple of days to be used by God "to help others live well" and I promise you those experiences have made me feel better than my most "productive" days in the office. God help me not to focus on the urgent at the expense of the critically important. Help me to strive for "significant" days not just "successful."
I challenge you to start your day off with a prayer to God to help you focus each day on what truly matters. Life is short. Let's not "squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us."
No comments:
Post a Comment