Your day can easily get derailed and it can happen so slowly that you don’t realize it until you are well off the tracks.

That’s what happened to my day last Monday … and it unfolded like that story of how to cook a frog. 

If you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly heat up the water, the frog won’t jump out. He will willingly let himself be cooked to death. 

The frog is comfortable in water and, if the temperature rises slowly enough, his body will adjust to the temperature until it’s too late and he’s frogs legs on someone’s plate.

Early last Monday morning, I was looking at a brand new day with all its opportunities yet to be discovered. I had thought about doing a few things but had no real plan for the day.

My wife, Lily, and I were at our cottage; it was my day off and I was relaxed – maybe too relaxed because I should have had a more specific plan.

Sadly, Lily and I never got to the place of carving out a plan. 

Instead, at 10 am we remembered that the NBA World champion Toronto Raptors’ parade would be starting. We turned on the TV and, sure enough, the party was all over the screen.

Commentators were commentating and people had arrived at the main stage and were gathering all along the parade route. There were millions of people – literally millions! Some estimated that 2,000,000 plus flooded downtown Toronto for this spectacle.

The video from the helicopters was amazing. The crowds looked like bees gathering on a honeycomb.

Soon the players arrived at the open top, double decker busses to get the show on the road. Fans overwhelmed the streets and the police from keeping the route clear for the procession. 

It was 12:30 before we realized we hadn’t had lunch and the busses had barely exited the Princess gates of the EX where they were starting. 

All that time there were interviews with the players, celebrities, sports experts and fans – all happy and delirious.

Like all the crowds of people, we were anticipating something special. We didn’t know what, but it was something we didn’t want to miss.

By then we’d given hours to this parade. We wanted to do something else but we’d invested so much time watching that we couldn’t just walk away before we saw the big culmination to this momentous event.

When all the players and dignitaries finally got to the stage, the people right up front had been there for ten hours … some had camped there all night!. 

There had been talk about a mini concert with Drake performing, but when it was all done there were only a few speeches, greetings from several of the players and that was it.

There had been so much build-up and promise of something that would be remembered for years and years. It was all anti-climactic compared to the frenzy along the way. 

Lil and I had invested a good portion of our day watching something that we had hoped would be inspiring, but instead left us feeling like we’d wasted several hours and missed out on the good things we could have done. 

We got cooked.

Here’s the thing: There are people who spend their whole lives looking for the next thing that will be exciting, bring a thrill or inspire them to do more. But much of that is just heating up the water in your pot. When you look back, it wasn’t really worth it. Every day seek Christ for a plan and give yourself to that plan, because that will inspire you. In the end, when you look back, you will be thrilled with the treasure you’ve stored up in heaven.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you wasting your time doing today? Leave your comments below.