Another Saturday--and I'm enjoying having the free time! My Saturdays, not surprisingly, are freer than my Sundays. Tomorrow is my last free Sunday for a while--meetings and bingo will take them up from now to Christmas, literally! And I am very tired after a service--a friend says it's from the work of channeling the Holy Spirit. And one of my mentors told me not to plan much for Sundays after service--"maybe a meeting, or a meet and greet, but don't try to have people over or go out to a big party, or go do all you hospital visits." And she was right!
Sometimes I think life is all about priorities--deciding what is important and focusing on that. What's most important to you? Then take care of that. What is next most important? Take care of that after you've taken care of the first one. If you run out of time or energy, then the things lower down the list don't happen. If they're things that need to happen, then you need to look at what's higher on the list and see what can be put to a lower place. There's a balance between taking care of yourself and doing what needs to be done in terms of daily living. It can be very easy to go too far one way or another. I've been there! The result is depression and exhaustion, even from taking too much care of yourself!
That's my sermon this week--what's important in your life? Really important? Not necessarily your work, although a lot of people really find fulfillment there; not only your family or your partner or your hobbies or your favorite TV show or your friends. What is it that matters most to you? I'm not talking about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or putting the big rocks in the jar first and fitting the smaller rocks around them--well, maybe the latter, a little bit. But what I'm trying to say in my sermon is that if we know what is important, really important, to us, then we can put the other stuff to one side, and focus on what is central to our lives. We can get rid of the clutter that takes up so much time and energy and psychological space. Joshua asked the Hebrews who they would worship. He was asking them, "what is important to you? What has just happened to you? You were brought out of Egypt, out of slavery. That would be pretty important. And who did that for you? God. Well, is God the most important thing in your life?"
Enough for today--I have a headache and sermon to finish!
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2 comments:
:) good post, made me think
I'm reading a book by Lisa Dahill, professor of worship and spirituality at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, called Truly Present -- it's about the practice of prayer, including liturgy as prayer and various prayer practices like examen, where you spend some quality time each day thinking about what during the day has brought you closer to God and what has led you farther away from God. I am finding that that is a wonderful exercise for sorting out the important/not important.
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