Sunday Lessons
Be wholeheartedly somewhere rather than halfheartedly everywhere.
I feel extraordinarily fragmented right now.
- I live between two houses. One of is for sale and the other I’m remodeling to move into.
- I don’t have an office so I office in many different places but none of them feel like “my space”.
- And on Sundays I bounce between 5 different campuses.
I’m usually ok with juggling a lot of different things. I’m not overly sentimental so I don’t get too bound by tradition, however having so many areas of my life disjointed is causing me to lose focus.
Sometimes I’m just not sure where I “should” be since there are so many places I “could” be.
I realize that feeling so halfheartedly a part of many things is making me less effective.
As leaders, the natural progression is to lead and manage more and more. But I think we have to always be careful to narrow our focus and wholeheartedly commit to the things that need us most.
So my Sunday Lesson this week was to commit to being “wholeheartedly somewhere rather than halfheartedly everywhere.”
Have you ever felt this way? How did you realign your focus?
yes, and I don’t do well with it at all so I feel your pain. When I moved from GA, lived w/my dad in VA for awhile until I got married, then moved in w/my hubs and we had his furniture and my furniture all over the place, I was in a new job and we were trying to become “one” and I was trying to adjust to VA… phew! Makes me tired just thinking about it because I am the type of person who likes to grow roots…
Honestly, the ONLY thing that got me thru that time was having a “home base” and that – for me – was my devotional times. I was a maniac about protecting those times in the morning and that helped “settle” me in the morning before I started my day into the vast chaos. Also – to-do lists. Then I could “shelve” on that to do list items so that I didn’t go around during my days going “Oh gosh, I have to do that when I get to the next place…” I simply wrote it down and then I knew it was somewhere where when I needed to deal with it (once I got to the next location) I would.
This was challenging.
Oftentimes, we get promoted to areas not only outside of our ability but also our passions.
(ex: Small Group Leader -> Small Group Coach)
With three teenagers, three moves under my belt, my job, youth work and missions work in the past 6 years, I definitely empathize with you. You, though my friend, have MUCH on you. My bit of advice would be meditation/devotional time (make this simple – just quiet before the Lord thinking on one verse) and then LISTS, LISTS, LISTS. I also think that we are inundated with way too much social media, so I am a fan of taking media fasts when necessary in order to refocus and realign. Praying for you. 🙂
Sometimes the elsewhere can be the fantasy future that you imagine for yourself in the future – that dream job. Yet being in the same place for 11 years can seem like an eternity but it is indeed my somewhere. Your transparency made me realize that I need to renew the focus of the somewhere I find myself wholeheartedly and this will be the preparation of the somewhere of tomorrow.