tasks

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This Deadline Didn’t Phase Me One Bit

This year I was ready well in advance of the deadline and it made my day seamless.

this deadline didn't phase me one bit

Maybe you are in the habit of having your work done well in advance. Maybe when you have a project or task assigned to you, you get right on it and beat the deadline by days or weeks.

I’m on a committee right now where we have to recruit people to participate in a number of review committees. 

At our first meeting one of my colleagues had already recruited 75 percent of his total and was just waiting to hear back from the last 25 percent. I, on the other hand, had recruited one person and only one other as a potential recruit. 

I guess what I’m saying is I am not normally the guy who gets right on things and ties them all up well before they need to be done. I’m usually the guy who knows the date when something needs to be done and will be working until that date on the calendar comes. 

I’m not really sure why that is. 

I do know that I don’t feel motivated when there is so much time between now and the deadline. Maybe I need a little pressure to get moving on things. 

I remember a TV show that was kind of based on that principle. The show was called, “Name That Tune”. Contestants would bid against each other to see how few notes they could hear before naming the tune. When it got down to two or three notes, well, the pressure was on and the contestant had to perform.

Last fall I did something that set me up to not be pressured this weekend. What I did back then meant I didn’t have to lift a finger at the deadline. What I did was not change the time on the clock on my bedside table.

From the end of October until now I’ve been looking at that clock every morning and it has always been one hour ahead. 

Now there were a few times I woke up, looked at my clock and got a little startled. … When your head is still thick from sleep, the mental processing takes a second to kick in. 

But the thought that I was an hour late getting up was only momentary. Then I would smile and close my eyes for a moment longer … much like when you wake up on Saturday morning thinking it’s another work day. When you realize it’s your day off, you just chuckle to yourself and calm right down.

Well, on Saturday night I didn’t have to do a thing. I was ready for Daylight Savings Time. 

And you know what? I really like the feeling of not having to change my clock. 

I think we should just stop the time change all together. We should stay on the same time all year long. Then no one would show up late for church because they didn’t make the time change deadline. 

Ya … it happens every year.

Here’s the thing: This world will one day come to a quick end. We can see the signs in natural disasters, super power tensions, wars and rumours of wars. The Bible says this will all come before the end. But you know what? We can prepare ourselves well in advance by having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Place your faith in Christ and you won’t miss that deadline.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you kept putting off because you don’t feel the pressure yet? Leave your comments and questions below.

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My Tasks Are Beginning To Discourage Me

What do you do when your list of tasks is longer than your arm? 

My tasks are beginning to discourage me

That’s what I wondered today when I wrote out all my tasks on a piece of paper. … I do that sometimes when I have more tasks than normal. 

Usually I just put them into my calendar or my to-do list on my computer. But when the list is really long, and I’m concerned about how many things I will get done, I write them out on a piece of paper. 

When I finished, I muttered, “This list is longer than my arm!” Then, just to be sure, I decided to measure it and, no, it wasn’t longer than my arm. 

Now if I had double spaced the words or written them out in really large letters then, yes, they would have been longer than my forearm. 

But my list was not even quite as long as my hand stretched out over the page.  

So really, how bad could my list be? 

Well, it was 19 items long and on a normal Friday I would probably get about five of them done. 

With all the others, I was dreaming if I thought I could accomplish them. But I put them on my list and I actually prayed and asked the Lord to help me get my list accomplished. 

At the time I wasn’t thinking of all nineteen, but when I prayed I had some tasks in mind that would take some serious time to complete. 

Five of the items were writing assignments – that’s heavy, especially since one of them was my sermon. … I remember a time when having to write one page seemed overwhelming. Now if I only have to write one page I’m thankful.

The scary thing about tasks is the more time you think about them, the more you could add to your list. It’s like they multiply. 

They’re much like rabbits. Some species of rabbits can have three or four litters a year. And they might have up to 12 babies in a litter. 

That’s a lot of babies – I mean, tasks.

They just keep piling up. 

I don’t know what you do to delete tasks from your list but I do two things. I don’t just put a checkmark beside the task. And I don’t just draw a line through the task, cancelling it off my list. 

I do both.

I check them off and draw two or three lines through them. They still can be read what they were, but I want to make it clear to me, and to the paper they are written on, that I’ve completed that task. It’s finished.

I think now I might stop working on this list of tasks. There will be more tomorrow. You don’t really make headway with a task list. It’s like a shoe with a hole in the sole. It just keeps letting more water in. 

I think I might cross out the letter “T” in my “Task list” to turn them all into “asks”. Then I can give them to other people to do for me. 

Here’s the thing: It’s true that we can have too many tasks for us to handle – so many tasks that we become overwhelmed with them all. Thankfully, God never has too many tasks. He is never overwhelmed. So no matter how many tasks you have, you can keep taking them to Him. Ask God for His help and He will help you. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How overwhelming is your list of tasks right now? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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Help For When You Are Unsettled

I noticed something today that I didn’t really like about myself. I found that I was a little out of sorts over a bunch of small details I needed to work on.

Unsettled

I felt unsettled, and that was not a great feeling as I was heading into a meeting where I couldn’t do anything about those details.

Dealing with several tasks in the course of a short period of time was not the real issue for me. The real issue was that I had a meeting to focus on so those small details had to take a back seat, and remain unfinished until my meeting was over.

I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t like things hanging over my head. I’ll either handle matters right away or block them from my mind so I don’t have to think about them.

I’m really good at blocking things out. The problem with that is I can forget about things and then procrastinate until it’s tough to get those details back into the active part of my mind so I will work on them.

The details that I was concerned about today could not fall victim to procrastination. They needed to be completed before the day was out.

Somehow I needed to put them on a back burner while I was at my meeting, and then move them to the forefront of my mind when my meeting concluded.

The meeting happened to be our church service, and I realized how I was feeling just minutes before the service started.

I had come to the front of the sanctuary to pray with those who were involved in making the next hour or so a significant time for the congregation.

Just before we went to pray I realized how unsettled I felt. I needed to put all my focus and concentration on the service and, in particular, my message.

All those minor details needed to be moved into a small, cramped place in the back of my mind where I didn’t have to think about them.

The worship team took to the platform, the tech guys headed to the back and I settled into my seat at the front of the sanctuary.

I didn’t really feel calm or focused, so I just bowed my head and started to pray.

The band started playing and music filled the sanctuary. The singers started to sing; the congregation stood, but I just stayed seated with my head down.

After a few moments I raised my head, stood up and looked at the screen.

The first words I saw were, “He will uphold me all of my days”.

I had just finished praying that God would help me to not worry about the things I couldn’t get to right then and help me to be single-minded on my sermon.

Then I saw those words on the screen. I settled right down. I thanked the Lord and started to worship with the rest of the congregation.

I was able to give my complete attention to my sermon, and not be concerned with those small details.

Here’s the thing: Often we struggle through times when we feel undecided or unsettled like I just did. God longs to help us in those times if we will just give the things that are distracting us to Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has God settled you down when you have been unfocused? Leave your comment below.

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Anyone Need Their Grass Cut?

Sometimes you start a simple task or job and it grows into something bigger. I have certainly experienced this at times in my life.

One time we had a water leak in our vacation trailer.  I decided to see if I could fix it myself.  I checked and found the problem needed to be fixed from the outside, which meant peeling off the metal shell at the front of the trailer.  I started at the bottom and noticed the problem extended a little higher so I took off the next strip, then the next, and the next.  When I had the whole front of the trailer removed, with just the wood frame left in place, I stepped back and thought, “What have I done?!”  It was way more work than I had thought.

Another time we had a leak in our basement.  I thought I would dig a hole outside and patch the foundation where the leak was.  In the end, the hole I dug was over 5 feet deep and about 12 feet long.  Again, that job got way bigger than I had first thought!

Reading about those two experiences, you might think they weren’t that bad, and that I must be a handy guy.  That’s where you would be VERY wrong!  I’m not that handy, and for all the handy work I have done, I don’t really like it.  It takes me too long; I don’t have the right tools; I make mistakes; I get frustrated; I get discouraged; I cut myself (another story).

Recently, we were at our cottage on a rainy weekend, when we happened to get a break from the rain for a few hours.  I decided I’d better take the opportunity to cut the grass since we wouldn’t be back for a few weeks.

It’s such a small piece of lawn that the job really doesn’t take much time.  But, as I was running the lawnmower over our grass, I thought about my brother’s lawn.  He had left his cottage a few hours earlier in the rain and I had noticed that his lawn needed a cut.

Since he’s up at his cottage almost every weekend and often cuts our grass (because we don’t get there all that frequently), I thought it was my chance to return the favour.  So, when I finished our lawn, I walked over to his place and started to cut his grass.

As I got close to finishing, I started to think about my brother’s neighbour who’s wife had just had surgery and was in intensive care at the hospital.  I thought, “That guy doesn’t need to be bothered with his lawn”.  So, as I finished with my brother’s lawn, I just kept going and worked on his neighbour’s.

As I walked back to my place pushing my lawnmower, I realized this was one of the few times a job that got bigger didn’t become frustrating or discouraging.  In fact, I walked with a sense of satisfaction that I had, in some small way, been a help to others.

Here’s the thing:  One of the greatest ways we can show the love of God to others is not by telling them but by showing them.  The problem is it takes time and, for many of us, time is precious.  We don’t have a lot of extra time to allow the task or job we are working on to become any bigger.  But sometimes that is exactly how we are to “love one another as I have loved you” John 13:34.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: What kind of “loving one another” acts have you done recently?