Practicing what you preach

There have been a number of occasions over the past week when I have been moved to sit down and write about some situation that particularly struck me. However, in each instance I honestly had not effectively evaluated the situation and derived helpful insights. That takes discipline and work, a skill that I did not master in college, ironically.

And so, instead of posting my thoughts on events like the motivation seminar I attended yesterday or the situations I'm wrestling with at work or in the church, I'm going to step back and try to grow in the areas of study and fruitfulness through managing priorities.

In the area of study, I aim to better apply the following principles that John Piper states are the aims of education:

We aim to enable and to motivate the student

• to observe his subject matter accurately and thoroughly,
  
• to understand clearly what he has observed,
  
• to evaluate fairly what he has come to understand,
  
• to appropriate wisely in life what he has found valuable, and
  
• to express in speech and writing what he has seen, understood, evaluated, and appropriated in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, fairness, and value can be known and enjoyed by others.

I aim to apply these principles to my blogposts going forward, out of a desire to provide the audience with fair and useful content.

On the topic of being more fruitful, I aim to not be deceived by the idea that busyness goes hand in hand with productivity. As C.J. Mahaney points out in his blog, you can be lazy and busy at the same time:

• Busyness does not mean I am diligent
• Busyness does not mean I am faithful
• Busyness does not mean I am fruitful

Recognizing the sin of procrastination, and broadening the definition to include busyness, has made a significant alteration in my life. The sluggard can be busy—busy neglecting the most important work, and busy knocking out a to-do list filled with tasks of secondary importance.

When considering our schedules, we have endless options. But there are a few clear priorities and projects, derived from my God-assigned roles, that should occupy the majority of my time during a given week. And there are a thousand tasks of secondary importance that tempt us to devote a disproportionate amount of time to completing an endless to-do list. And if we are lazy, we will neglect the important for the urgent.

I'm sharing these personal convictions with hopes that they'll be helpful to someone else out there, and also as a way to confess areas I'm working on, by God's grace. I intend to heed this rebuke of laziness and turn from my busy-but-slothful ways (namely, attending to 2nd priority items over the highest priorities) that infiltrate my role as the head of the household and my role in my place of work. There are too many "high priority" items that, apart from God intervening, I will put off until Jesus returns. These items are typically the hardest to tackle, and may involve sacrificing my time for someone else, or focusing on something that is completely foreign and uncomfortable to me (like figuring out how much to save for my son's college). If you think of it, pray for me in this area. Lord bless you. --Joel