The Urgent or the Important Pile

Wow, it has been a long time since I last wrote on here! This pretty much reflects my life--how often I can get sucked into lurching from one thing to another on my extensive to do list, and the next thing I know, I am focusing on the urgent rather than the important. The urgent screams out our name, and we feel we MUST get those letters out, that laundry folded, those phone calls made, those emails read and answered... It truly never ends. But the important waits quietly and unobtrusively in the wings of our frenetic lives. Spending time alone with God in His Word, reading to our child at night, sharing struggles or blessings with our family at dinner, eating a real dinner together (!), writing or calling to encourage a friend who is going through a tough time--these are the important things of life which renew us and transform our lives from a dull, practical gray to a rainbow of colors.

It is said that President Eisenhower had a firm rule about what papers were to be put on his desk. There were to be only 2 piles of paper--one was only the most urgent papers and the other only the most important papers. Ike later commented that only rarely were the piles the same. Urgency is the enemy of peace and perspective and gratitude. But when we daily choose to do that which is important, we find His joy bubbling up even in the midst of busyness or struggles.

So, nothing profound, but just a reminder that today, do that which God tells you is important and watch how He will order your day and enable you to do that which is urgent, but nonetheless secondary. As one proverb puts it: reverence for God adds hours to each day. Take time to express your gratitude today. Don't just think it (though you do need to start there--sometimes we forget to even think about what we are grateful for!); share it out loud with someone you love...beginning with God and then ending with someone who has a "skin face." Who knows how your word of encouragement might make all the difference to that person?

Try, just for today, to practice an "attitude of gratitude." When you feel yourself starting to complain--even if it's just abut the weather--turn it around and think of something to be grateful for instead. Yesterday morning early, I took our dog out for a walk. It had rained hard the night before, and as we walked up one dark street, the streetlight illuminated a carpet of newly fallen yellow leaves. It was a burst of joy as I thanked God for that lovely carpet of brilliantly colored leaves under our feet--a gift for which I had paid absolutely nothing but enjoyed far more than any shiny bauble purchased at a store. As I picked up my sons' clothes (again!), I smiled as I thanked the Lord for the privilege of raising those boys. As I once heard and remind myself of daily, "I am here to serve with joy." One cannot help but be filled with joy even in the most mundane and unrelenting of service when one chooses gratitude. And when we choose to put the important, the eternal, first in our lives, our perspective will be changed from one of grim determination to get it all done to joyful expectancy in how God will enable us to do all He's called us to do.

So, today, I choose to finally write in this blog and share how God is counseling my all too often preoccupied and therefore ungrateful heart to seek Him first. Do the important. Do it today. And watch Him put the song back in your heart. To Him be all the glory!