Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Time is in His Hands

Just a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about allowing God to schedule my time.

First - It is waaaaay harder than I though it would be to pause after each activity and ask God what to do next! I'm in the habit of running my own days, so when I complete one task I keep catching myself just flowing into the next logical thing. It is taking a conscious effort to take that minute and seek God.

Second - I sometimes like my own plan better than God's! He keeps telling me, "no, today is not the day to plan out your trip." I really just want to sit here for a couple hours, plot out my map on mapquest, find hotels/cabins/vacation rentals, book, and have all the details settled. But it wasn't on God's list either yesterday or today.

Third - It is totally amazing to me how God can ensure I get all the important and urgent stuff taken care of in one short day! Amazing...

Here is yesterday's list...
- pick up fresh produce - not today
- go to bank - not today
- write for book - not today
- exercise - yes
- meet with ministry co-worker - yes
- sort out ministry binder - yes
- mail out e-News - delegate
- put away laundry - yes
- vacuum, sweep & wash - just s&w kitchen
- plan out Disney trip - not today
- retreat meeting - yes
- send out reference letter - yes
- Bible time - of course, first

* Of course, a few things not on my list of "to dos" came up throughout the day - dealing with emails, phone calls, feeding people, etc. I tried to take a moment each time another task popped into my head to ask the Lord about it.

It was neat, because during my quiet morning time, I really felt I needed to go exercise before the kids needed to get ready for school, but God told me to just stay and hang out with Him a while longer. He assured me He'd provide time to exercise later. Once two kids were off, the other three settled in for a movie and I was able to go for a good 20 minutes on my new (to me) recumbent bike. If you can believe it, there was time for me to do all of the "yeses" plus do lunch, play "Guess Who" with kiddos, do supper, receive and reply to more than 50 emails, and I even read a novel for 15 minutes!

I am a bit frustrated and confused that He has told me for two days in a row NOT to write, as I have also felt nudged that I'm supposed to be spending some dedicated time writing. When?! I know He can make enough time, and give me the words so the writing goes quickly, but I'd just like to have it all mapped out a little more clearly. Ha! I guess He'll tell me when to write.

Now, as much as I would like to surf the net and plotting out my map, I just took a moment to seek guidance and it's time to get something ready for supper. Then I'm interviewing 2 potentials for childcare providers, and God did tell me to vacuum today...

Fourth - Now I know why the Lord commanded us to take the Sabbath day and rest! He wants us to busy working all day. After six days like this, I am going to savour a day of rest!

2 comments:

  1. That is awesome. I have never taken each thing and asked GOd what He wants me to do! But, you have inspired me. Because somedays, I feel I have gotten nothing accomplished that I was supposed to as I got sidetracked on something else... Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is amazing. I've asked God at the beginning of the day to direct it and help me know what He wants me to do that day but I haven't taken it to that level. Thank you for sharing that!

    ReplyDelete

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