thoughts

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How To Clean Up A Messy Life

I’ve been noticing that things have been getting a little messy in my life. I haven’t been careful at keeping the little things tidy.

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What I’ve observed is, my night table is . . . well, you can’t see much of it because of all the little things that are covering it. You know, you empty your pockets at night, and where do you put all that stuff? Right! You put it on your night table.

Then there are things like cards. I recently had a birthday – what do you do with birthday cards after you’ve read them? … night table.

It seems that once you’ve let a few things stay on your night table, it’s free game for anything else that you or anyone else sees fit to place there.

I look at the mess on that night table and think I should do something about it, but I’m not sure where to put all those things. So they just stay there.

Then there is the desk top of my computer. It is littered with files and folders. They say that your computer doesn’t run as fast when the home screen is filled with the things you haven’t filed somewhere.

It usually starts with me thinking that I will soon need that file so I better keep it on the desktop for easy access. Since that’s convenient, it’s not long until I do that with another file. Soon I’m not taking the time to file anything; it’s easier to just leave it on the desktop.

It looks horrible. I’ve chosen a few pictures that I like to look at for my desktop, but now I can hardly see them for all the icons and file names that litter the screen.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. It happens regularly at work. Filing is an issue with me. I just don’t keep up with it and the result is that my desk at work gets some not-so-nice-looking piles of paper on it.

I find that I live this way for a while; it can even be a long while. But at some point – and I’ve reached that point right now – I need to do something about it. I need to do some cleaning up.

I started last night with my laptop. I trashed some files, filed others. I didn’t finish the job but I made great headway towards having a file-free screen.

My night table is next – the cards have to go, and all those other little things that should be put in their places … not just out of sight, but in the right spot.

Here’s the thing: One of the problems with clutter is that we don’t know where to put things. We don’t have a spot for them. Because of that, we tend to leave things lying around, hoping they will find a spot for themselves. But that never happens. Our life can also get messy with stuff we haven’t dealt with that’s just lying around – things like unforgiveness, jealousy, bitterness, lust, anger (this could be a long list). We don’t trip on those things every day, but they sure make our lives cluttered and difficult to relate to God, even find Him sometimes. Maybe it’s time to clean up the mess. Where should you put all that stuff? Take it to God, lay it all before Him and ask Him to deal with it. You’ll be amazed at how He can clean up your life!

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What part of your home or life gets the most messy? Leave your comment below.

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Why Comparing Will Result In Renting A Storage Unit

This morning my wife went for a walk. When she returned, she commented on how many garage sales were happening in our neighbourhood.

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I casually asked her if she saw anything she wanted and she quickly responded with, “Look around! We could have five garage sales with all the stuff we have here! What do we need with more?!”

That statement stuck with me. I don’t usually think we have a lot. In fact, compared to other people, we don’t have that much. … But that’s the problem right there!

That’s why there are so many garage sales. That’s why most homes in North America could have a garage sale every week.

We compare. And when we compare, we often compare with those who have more, not less.

So compared to the guy down the street, I don’t have all that he has … so yes, I do need a riding lawnmower.

However, if we didn’t compare ourselves to others, if we just evaluated our own situations in terms of what we needed, we probably wouldn’t be checking out garage sales – we would be hosting them.

Most of us collect things. We need storage bins and closets and lockers and garages to house all the stuff we collect. Many people can’t park their car(s) in their garages because they’re too full of their things.

They might not use those things any more, but they have them just in case.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have a garage. In winter we would have to brush the snow off the car and scrape the windows. Since I’ve been a homeowner, we’ve had garages and I have been determined to use those garages for my cars.

That alone has kept us from collecting a few things we didn’t need. When in doubt, we’ve always asked, “Where would we put that?”, and the garage is always off limits.

Self Storage in the U.S. is a six billion dollar business, and we’ve all seen the kinds of useless junk that people put in them from shows like “Storage Wars” and “Auction Hunters”.

There is another factor that adds to this problem and it’s that we don’t just want more, we want new. We compare what we have with the latest styles or colours or trends. We feel we need to update our stuff.

We just put the old into storage – like my tie collection … Who knows? Maybe my fat, colourful Fred Flintstone tie will come back into fashion … Was it ever in fashion?

So we go to garage sales and we have garage sales because, when we compare, we need more and the old stuff we have needs to be replaced with the latest stuff.

Who’s in control here? Certainly not us.

… Maybe we need to make a trip to Bibles for Missions with a load or two of stuff.

Here’s the thing: When we compare, we usually compare against something better or new and we always come out on the losing end, causing us to want more or feel we need to update. Spiritually, we compare ourselves against the Bible, against God’s standards. And unlike the comparisons we do in our society where the targets are always changing, God’s standard stays the same. So stick to God’s standard, and you won’t collect excess baggage or be mesmerized by the trends.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How much stuff could you contribute to a garage sale or a store like Bibles for Missions? Leave your comment below.

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Too Busy To Set Goals?

It’s a good feeling to complete a goal you’ve had for some time. When you have to squeeze that goal into an already tight schedule, there is a sense of relief when it’s done.

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Last summer Lily and I redid the deck at our cottage. We had all kinds of advice about how to get the old paint off – a huge, messy chore.

In the end, we used a liquid that was probably filled with all kinds of harmful and cancer-causing chemicals. It did a good job though. We may turn green and begin to glow in five years but we got the paint off.

Most people will then seal the wood with a stain of some kind, but before we did that we decided to clean the wood.

That’s right, good old water is not good enough to clean wood any more. You have to use another chemically-laden liquid to wash all that grit and grime out of the planks.

Well that worked too. It was amazing how bright the wood became. It took that grey, lifeless timber and we got it looking like we just chopped a tree down and sent it through the mill.

We were so impressed with how it turned out we decided not to stain it at all. Instead we are going to leave the deck unprotected. Can you believe that? Wood unprotected? There are probably laws against that but don’t tell anyone that’s what we did.

We figure that when it starts looking its age again (because right now it looks ten years younger than it really is), we will just clean the deck again with that rich chemical wash that seems to transform the wood back to its natural colour.

After doing all that, we also took the old railing off the deck and put on a new one, which really looks nice!

Last year at this time, we were proud of the work we had done. We were tired; it was hard work, but we felt really good … like we’d improved the cottage.

I like to take my time savouring those kinds of moments – like maybe for a couple of years or so.

But not Lily. She thought that it looked so good at our cottage, we should do the same thing with our deck at home. The idea was when we got back from vacation we would get busy on the home front.

What? Two decks in one year? I thought, “Who am I? A pastor or a guy who works on decks for a living?” … I put it off for the rest of the year.

But when this year began, Lily managed to sneak it on to our list of goals. We ended up being so busy, I even had to work on the deck on my birthday. But it looks great! … Lily wishes we had have done this five years ago. I wish we could buy a big ole retractable umbrella to give us a little shade on that deck.

Maybe that’s next year’s goal.

Here’s the thing: Set goals for growing in your relationship with God. Determine topics or books of the Bible you want to explore. This year I’m focussing on prayer. I’ve read four books on prayer since January. You might have to work hard – even sacrifice to accomplish those goals – but you are going to smile at the results when you reach them.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What more do you want to know about God or the Bible? Leave your comment below.

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When Thankfulness Goes From Oblivious To Reality

In raising children, it’s easy to get the idea that your kids are oblivious to what you do for them. This week I learned that, despite the exterior finish of being absorbed in one’s self, underneath there is a high gloss coat of reality.

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I think what gets parents believing that our kids are not in touch with reality is because they start with a warped, small view of the world around them.

At first their world consists of just Mom and Dad. It’s years before they go off to school and begin to expand their understanding of how the world works.

Time is all about them … and they can’t even tell time. They do slowly learn the notion of hours and minutes and get it eventually – especially if you give them a digital watch and don’t try to confuse them with the big hand, little hand concept … let’s not even mention that sweeping hand!

Distance doesn’t compute with them either. They don’t get that something is far away.

… I remember when we moved from Edmonton to Kingston. It took us four days of driving to get there. You would think that being cooped up in a car for more than eight hours a day for that long would be etched upon the little minds of children. No!

A week after we arrived in our new city, our five year old wanted to have his best friend over for his birthday party. That best friend now lived 3700 kilometres away, but our son thought we should just pick him up and drive him over. When we said it would take too long, he said to fly him over.

Which brings up another concept young children don’t appreciate outside of their world of want – money. Kids have no clue of the value of money. To them the value difference between a quarter and a loonie (dollar coin) has to do with the size and sparkle of the coin and not its purchasing power.

When we commented to our son, who was three at the time, that we couldn’t afford to get him a certain toy, he promptly said, “Just put it on layaway”.

We had never done that before, so we questioned him on where he got that idea. He heard about it on TV and had no idea what layaway was except it seemed to him that he could get what he wanted, if we did that.

After years and years of living with your children’s concept that the world revolves around them, it’s difficult to perceive them understanding the bigger picture. You wonder if they will ever get to the place of appreciating the world outside of themselves.

Well, I got a Father’s Day card yesterday that proves they really do have a grasp on reality.

The front of the card read, “I finally found a Father’s Day card that really captures the experience of raising a son like me . . .”  On the inside, as you opened the card, there was a toilet with a $20 dollar bill sliding into it. The caption read:

“Amazing, isn’t it? Don’t think about it, and have a great day.”

Thanks, Son.

Here’s the thing: God gives us so much, and we so often forget to think of how much comes from Him – things like family, provision, health, possessions, work, rest, relaxation, abilities, skills, spiritual gifts, etc. Take some time to think about all God does for you and thank Him. It really is amazing.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you most thankful for today? Leave your comment below.

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Change Happens Over Time

A lot can happen over a long period of time. You don’t notice the change at first because it takes time to develop.

leaky tap

Recently, we cleaned the deck in our backyard. When we moved in to our house the wood was pressure-treated and it looked great. But over the years it started to look grey and old and there were dark patches that became more dominant.

It didn’t just happen; it gradually got that way so that it kind of snuck up on us. But one day we realized we needed to do something about this deck; it was not looking very good.

Scientists will say that’s the way the whole world works; it’s called evolution. Given enough time, things develop. One problem I see with their theory is that, with everything at my house that changes over time, it changes for the worst!

It deteriorates; it doesn’t get better, or turn into something new and improved. Things get worse.

You might not notice for a while, or pick up on the little signs, or indicators, but down the road at some point you realize that things are not as they were, and it’s not for the better.

This week Lily discovered something in our basement that had developed over the last week or so. I had sort of noticed that there was something going on in our basement, but it wasn’t totally clear to me.

On Friday night, Lily was talking on the phone and walking in the basement when she stepped on a wet part of the carpet.

It wasn’t supposed to be wet there and, as she looked further, she discovered that this wet area was pretty large. It had soaked the bottoms of book cases, a closet organizer and some picture frames.

When Lily told me, I realized what I had noticed earlier – a faint, musty smell that was actually coming from this water.

We knew right away where the problem originated. I had fixed a few taps in the house last week and, in doing that, had to shut off the water in the house. Well, the tap at the water meter had been dripping slowly since that time.

I guess it turns out that taps only last nineteen years because I’ve now replaced all the taps that old in the place!

It’s pretty amazing how a little drip over time can soak such a large piece of carpet and ruin several things. If it had have been a faster drip, I probably would have noticed it and not left it.

But I didn’t notice the leaky tap, and a week later it had created a mess!

It takes some people time to notice things. A few days ago, I was talking to someone and he motioned at my face. I knew immediately what he was referring to – my goatee … which is not there anymore and hasn’t been for a year and half.

There were no lasting effects with my facial hair going undetected. However, we have a big clean up ahead of us from that undetected drip in our basement.

Here’s the thing: Messes, like sin and hurts, if not addressed, can interfere with your relationship with God. They may not be that noticeable at first, but as more messes pile up, the damage to your relationship with God can get to the point where everyone around you notices things aren’t right. Don’t let the little things go unattended and you will keep your relationship with God in good shape.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you noticed that turned into something big? Leave your comment below.

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Why Grace Beats Fair Any Day

Recently I played in a golf tournament fundraiser for an organization. When the word “tournament” is involved, it always stirs something inside me to want to put my best effort into it.

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We all know that when there is competition there are winners and losers. And no amount of trying to hide that fact escapes those who are on either side.

When my son was young and playing hockey, they wouldn’t post the score on the score board after one team had a certain lead. But you could ask every boy on either team what the score was and they would be able to tell you!

In this golf tournament, I was all about our task to produce a competitive score.

The course was in great shape, the weather held up nicely throughout the round … the environment was perfect for a great round.

The only thing that let our team down was our own skill level. When the round was over and we turned in our score card, we had failed to make enough close approach shots, didn’t run up as many chips as we needed to, and didn’t make any long crucial putts.

It didn’t matter too much because, as good Canadians, we had fun playing and could purchase draw tickets for prizes at the end.

… That’s right, prizes were awarded based on your ticket being drawn and not so much on how well your team did against the other teams. I didn’t mind that but I sure would have liked to know how we did compared to the others in the tourney.

After a great meal, the score was forgotten and it was on to the prizes that were given out. I had bought one draw ticket when I registered and then, after the round, I bought two more. So I figured I had a chance at maybe getting something.

There were about five or six people handing out prizes, randomly arriving at the tables we were sitting at with prizes for those who had their tickets drawn.

About every few minutes one of these prize ushers would show up at our table with a prize. After five or ten minutes I realized something: every one of the guys at my table had a prize except me. There were seven of us.

I’m not sure if the other guys at my table caught it but they all walked away with some loot.

I started to think, “Hey, how come I got left out?” and I began to think it was all a little unfair.

Then I remembered that I had been invited to this tourney and it hadn’t cost me anything to play. I don’t think I would have been able to afford to play so it was a pretty awesome privilege just to be there.

As it turned out I may have been the most fortunate golfer at my table!

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we can think that life is unfair to us when compared to others. But we need to remember that God doesn’t treat us fairly, He treats us graciously. That’s better than fair. We don’t deserve anything from God but He is so gracious that He offers us something better than good things in this life – He invites us into His family, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What keeps you from enjoying God’s grace? Leave your comment below.

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Silent Communication 

Have you ever wished you had gotten the silent treatment? You know, when someone refuses to speak to you even if you coax them?

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I can’t say that I’ve experienced that in my marriage. Neither Lily nor I use that method of communication.

It sounds funny to say “silence” and “communication” in the same sentence. But we do communicate through silence.

I had an instructor once who had a line he would use all the time in teaching leadership. He would say, “You can not not communicate.” It had a double negative thing going on and sounded funny to hear and to say, but it’s true.

Even in silence there is communication.

When someone goes silent, they may be communicating that they’re mad – believe me, it doesn’t take a mind reader to figure that out!

That’s just one thing that silence can communicate; there are many others …

When someone is silent, it might mean they are sad, depressed, don’t know the answer or don’t know what to say. … Mind you, there are a lot of people who don’t know things but it doesn’t stop them from sharing what they don’t know with words that almost sound like they do know!

Often when someone is silent, we don’t like it. We get uncomfortable when there is silence; we’re so used to having something in the background, some kind of noise.

When we drive in a car, we often have a radio or music playing, even if it’s low and hard to hear. It’s better than just plain silence.

In my car, silence is never an issue. I always have the sound of wind that gets louder the faster you go. They usually call that white noise, but what I experience is beyond white noise.

White noise is gentle, quiet, relaxing, in the background. In my car it sounds like a hurricane is going to break through the glass at any moment and whisk me out of Kansas, right to the land of OZ!

Silence, however, can be appreciated. We have all been in those conversations that we just wished and prayed would end.

Children with their inquisitive minds can make us long for silence … that’s when you play the car game, “Let’s see who can hold their breath the longest as we drive by this grave yard.” Oh, the quiet bliss of those moments of dead air space!

Two people who are very comfortable can remain silent in the same room or place, maybe reading different books, or thinking on their own. But it gets weird if it goes on too long, before someones says, “Hey, listen to what I just read” or “What are you thinking about that’s so funny?”

We were made to communicate, and we do it even in silence. Even when there is nothing to say, even when we can’t find the words to express what we are feeling or thinking.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes God seems silent, and we desperately want to hear from Him. Unfortunately, we don’t have a face or body language to look at to give us a clue as to what He is communicating to us in the silence. The one thing we should not stop doing is seeking to understand what His silence means. Don’t give up; don’t turn away. Keep coaxing, keep investigating what God is saying in the silence.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you feel when God is silent? Leave your comment below.

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How To Fix Things The Hard Way

I needed to be born wealthy. It’s not because I have expensive tastes; it’s because I lack the skills to fix things.

maxresdefaultI’m not great at working with my hands; it doesn’t come that easily to me.

If I was wealthy I wouldn’t have to fix things, or make things, or put things together. I could hire someone to do all that!

I’m not saying that wealthy people never fix things themselves. Some are handy, so they use their money in other ways. I would use money to hire out jobs around the house.

Reality for me, however, is I have had to learn to do things that I’m not particularly adept at.

Like this week when we had three taps that all leaked. There were two in the laundry room and one up in the ceiling of our family room that led to an outside faucet.

I sized up the work involved, took pictures and set off for the hardware store. The guy at the store looked at my pictures, listened to my explanation and then handed me a small package of washers.

He said there was a small washer at the end of these taps, and all I had to do was just remove the tap, use a screwdriver to remove the washer, replace it and put it back together.

I was encouraged. It sounded like a 15 minute job – half hour at best. Easy.

Well, it would have been easy for a handy guy … not so easy for me.

I won’t go into all the details but I had a lot of trouble loosening the screws. They were like frozen on. I guess over the years, having had water on it every day, it got stuck in place.

Well, let’s just say 5 jabs to my finger later – 3 with a screwdriver and 2 with an utility knife – I was no closer to fixing those taps.

I went to the same hardware store twice, and then didn’t think I could show my face there again.  I ended up going to two more hardware stores … not all in one trip. There were four separate trips to hardware stores!

At one point, I just sat down in the family room and watched TV. There wasn’t anything on. It was the middle of the afternoon but I needed something to take my mind off the fifteen minute job I couldn’t complete.

As I sat on the couch, I thought, “If I was wealthy, I’d have a guy in here right now. I’d be able to chat with him while he completed the task.” … But that’s not my lot in life.

I didn’t change the washers out on all the taps and they still leaked a bit. That’s when I looked at my bank account and decided I was richer than I thought.

So I purchased three new taps (they come with washers already in place) for 300% of the cost of the washers. It took me about 20 minutes to get them installed and the leaks were gone.

Why didn’t I just do that in the first place?!

Here’s the thing: Not being handy is a lot like us having to deal with temptation. We are not that good at it. It’s difficult work and we don’t do well much of the time. We get hurt or hurt others in the process. As difficult as it is to keep from sinning, there is coming a day when the riches of heaven will make temptation a thing of the past. Keep doing the hard work in the mean time.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What makes temptation hard work for you? Leave your comment below.

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The Stress Of Keeping People Waiting

It’s never nice to keep people waiting. There are some people you should never keep waiting, like the human resources person who’s going to interview you for a job.

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When someone is left waiting, it says they don’t matter, or they are unimportant, or you don’t care.

… My wife keeps me waiting almost every time we go out together, but somehow that doesn’t seem to bother her very much because she keeps on doing it. But that’s another blog.

There are times when I panic when it looks like I’m not going to make an appointment on time. I usually feel this way when I’m in the car, rushing to make it to my destination so that I don’t keep the person waiting. I might have my foot heavy on the gas but I just can’t get there fast enough.

It’s not a nice feeling.

The other day I had that feeling in church. We had set up a Skype video chat to take place during our service with a missionary couple in Spain.

There were a few technical things to consider, like getting the video chat from the computer to the big screen in the sanctuary, and getting the sound to go through the church sound system.

Since all that was taken care of, I thought all I had to do was make the call. That’s when the trouble started. My Skype program wouldn’t connect online! I had a few minutes during a song to make the call but I started to panic when it couldn’t connect.

I was really feeling the pressure to get the call going. The silence in the sanctuary raised my blood pressure, and all at the same time I was trying to think of what to do to get the call to go through and what I needed to say to the congregation.

I knew I was keeping my congregation waiting but I was also aware that I was keeping the couple on the other end of the scheduled Skype call waiting too. And they had no idea what was happening on our end.

We quickly went to a commercial break … not really … I wished we could have gone to a commercial. Instead we took up the offering and sang a song.

That gave me time to reset the modem and router, and we took one last stab at it. It wasn’t immediate but after a little fiddling and some assistance, we got the call to work.

The stress, pressure, and panic left me immediately … I don’t think that was good for my heart.

They say that playing hockey is hard on the heart because you get your heart rate up really high and then you go and sit on a bench and your heart rate drops like a rock.

Well, I think that’s what happened to me. My heart rate and everything else in me was racing … until I saw that video on the screen.

… And it was all over keeping people waiting. It’s not nice to keep them waiting, and when we do, we often feel pressured.

Here’s the thing: God wants to meet with us each day, but we keep Him waiting when we don’t make our appointment. Maybe we don’t feel the pressure, or don’t have the panic, but God is waiting. I’m not saying we should feel guilty when we don’t make that meeting with Him. Our meeting can take a different form at a different time. What I am saying is the same importance you would place on not keeping others waiting is the the same importance we should place on meeting with God daily.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Have you ever felt pressured or panicked when keeping someone waiting? Leave your comment below.

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All Time Is Not Equal

We live in a world that tries to convince us that everyone and everything is equal. Don’t try to tell me that! It’s just not true … time isn’t even equal.

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Time is all measured out; we use it to be exact, to track things. But I’m beginning to believe that all time is not equal. For instance, we have 24 hours each day, and though every hour has 60 minutes in it, not all those hours are equal.

You can’t accomplish the same amount in every given 60 minute period of a day. You can’t even equally enjoy each 60 minute time frame in a day … nor can you control what will take place in any hour.

So when you complain that you’re short on time, and someone says we all have the same amount of time, technically he may be correct, but his statement is rather cliche with very little thought behind it.

This week I was in Toronto for a conference. One night we went to the Blue Jays baseball game. At 5 pm it took us over an hour to get down to the ball park. After the game, and a few more hours spent downtown, the trip back only took us 25 minutes. The difference was mostly traffic.

You naturally have more energy in some hours than others. You can have more interruptions at certain times or a deadline to meet before you can take a break and relax. … I don’t want to be trying do something that requires a lot of thinking when my energy is low or when there is a great chance of interruptions.

The other day I tried to plan accordingly. My intention was to write my blog early on Monday morning, but I had stayed up late the night before and didn’t get up as early as I had hoped to.

I had a short window in which to write my blog because I also had to phone to make an appointment to take our car to our mechanic. When I called, he said he could take the car right then.

Because I got up late, I didn’t start writing my blog early enough and then had to leave it to take the car in. All this took place before 9 am – prime quiet time when I have good mental energy. I lost out because of a bad decision the night before and an appointment which was out of my control.

I never did get a blog written that Monday.

It takes some planning and strategy to coordinate your day into the hours that best suit the things you want and need to do.

You just can’t go into a day without a plan or you won’t be very productive. And if you string a few of those days together, you’ll feel like you will never get out from under the backlog you find yourself in.

Here’s the thing: If you are going to spend time with God you need to plan it. And you need to plan it for a time when you will be mentally alert and you won’t face interruptions. You can’t guarantee all that but you can plan for it. If God is important to you, then plan to spend time with Him when there is the greatest chance that you will be mentally and emotionally able to meet with Him, at a time when you won’t be interrupted by things, people, emails or phone calls.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What time of day are you at your best and least distracted? Leave your comment below.