a Quote:
“People who think big picture recognize that there are a thousand different efforts to which thy might make a contribution. But they also know that there are only a few of those efforts in which they can make a maximized contribution on the basis of their giftedness.”
“One can drive a car from New York to San Francisco in any of four or five speeds indicated on the gear shift. But the drive is best done in gears meant for speed and fuel economy. To drive the distance in second gear would mean engine wear, fuel waste, and slow speeds. In my life there are things that I must do in second gear. And there are things I can do in overdrive . . . I must find a way to slough off the low-gear activities and embrace the overdrive ones, because they are in the core of my giftedness.”
from the book Guilt Free Living
my Prayer:
Lord, I just I can’t do everything I want to do. I know it’s not even a matter of doing everything I want to do, but just not doing any one of them well. I literally can’t do everything I want to do. As much as I pray for a longer day or that some researcher somewhere would invent a pill that would provide the benefits of sleep, I know that the limitations of a 24 hour day and the fact that my body needs sleep are by your perfect design.
Please help me to identify and remove responsibilities – and even the things I enjoy – that are outside your will for my life. If I don’t have the discernment or courage to remove them myself, Lord, I pray that you will. I freely offer all of them up to you. Please remove the chaf from my life, no matter what the consequences.
Lord, please help me with the responsibilities that remain in my life. Please show me how to delegate tasks that take me so much time to complete that I become inefficient, wasting time I should be devoting to the things I do well. Help me to ignore the pride that stands in the way of asking for help. Help me to remember that even the woman in Proverbs 31 had help.
the Word:
She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.
Proverbs 31:15 (NIV)
This was dual published on my Pragmatic Communion blog.