Those of you who have read my first three blog posts may ask yourselves: how in the world does he juggle these major efforts (direct one nonprofit, co-direct another, pursue the PhD)? It's a question I often get asked, especially as I currently serve as Board Chair for two other organizations (a local nonprofit, FamilyWorks! Ministries (famworks.org) and a state denominational committee). And of course I value and prioritize the time I spend with Rose and my boys.
Fifteen years ago my best friend Jim Smith and I were corresponding across 2300 miles: I was living in my parents' downstairs in Vancouver, Washington, having graduated a year or so earlier, and Jim was finishing up his undergrad education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. We'd write 6-8 page letters, single-spaced, sometimes written and sometimes typed, but always covering a range of topics both wide and deep.
In one letter, Jim wrote about the various activities he had going on and said he was struggling to understand how to prioritize. He said he knew God came first, but then what was second. And in prayer one day, the answer came to him: as long as God is first, it doesn't matter what comes second. Or rather, what comes second may change based on the leading of the Holy Spirit who lives within us. Profound, and true.
I've often thought of that over the past three years as my workload has piled up. God built me with a large capacity for work. Part of that is that I don't need much sleep, part is that I tend to quickly organize my work to finish it as efficiently as possible, and part is that (as an INTJ) even while I am working on one thing my brain is processing the other things I need to spend time on, so that when I sit down to actually work on them, they go much faster. I first discovered this in college when I would routinely write 10-page papers for my literature or history courses in two hours or less, and get A's on them.
So the key is not how I prioritize my own work today, or this week, or for the next 12 months. I make plans, of course -- I am a J who loves structure, after all -- but I've become much more comfortable with God changing my plans.
My life -- as yours, I'm guessing -- is a juggling act, where I may change what I'm focused on every half an hour. But as Jim Elliot once said "Wherever you are, be all there." It's okay for me to have 10 things to work on, so long as God has called me to them and so long as I am not distracted and frittering away my time and energy. When I am talking with someone about AllOne, I am completely focused on that effort; when I have a phone call about the SEED web site, I am only thinking about SEED; when I sit down to research articles for the dissertation, that's what I do. And when I have a date with my wife, I focus on her. When I am hiking or wrestling with my boys, I am with them.
Would I like to spend more time in each of these areas? Sure. But if I am called to multiple expressions for what God has built in me, my job is simply to be obedient and do my best in each. Just as the call was his, so the results are God's.
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