Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Check!

My best friend loves Post-It notes.

In college, she had them in multiple colors, and they were stuck everywhere. She had a Post-It for her homework, one for long-term projects, one for her daily to-do list. She loves them so much that people buy them for her as gifts and think of her when they see Post-Its while out and about.

I am not necessarily a fan of Post-Its, but I am a huge fan of lists.

My daily planner is completely full of lists. I have a list of what to do at work that day, and then I have a list of what I need to do that night. I sometimes write up a week's to-do list on the wipe board in our kitchen. I have an ongoing meals list on the refrigerator, as well as a foods-we-need list for the next grocery trip. I have a list of items that I think will be great in our garden next spring.

One of my favorite parts of having the to-do lists is I get to cross items out. My planner has a place to put a check mark for the items you have completed, but I don't use that. I love to cross tasks out so that they really look like they are done.

One of our pastors talked about check-list Christianity this Sunday. One place where I really have check-list Christianity is in my Bible reading. I put it on my nightly task list, and then I cross it off when I have read a little.

And that's on the good nights. On the good nights, I read what I am supposed to from the reading list. On the OK nights I rush to read something just so I can cross it off the list. On the bad nights, I forget the Bible reading because I'm too busy finishing up the other daily tasks.

Our other pastor is our mentor in our new Sunday School class, and he talked about the importance of us giving God our best. We shouldn't wait until the last minute of the day to cross off a task but we should really want to read our Bible and converse with God.

I have always struggled with this, and I'm not sure how to get better at it. I still haven't figured out what time of day is "best," and if I did I still need prayer to want to give that time of day to God.

3 comments:

  1. I've been working on this lately, too - we even recently (last week) candidly discussed in my community group how we spend time in the Bible each week.

    These might not work for you (or they might make you think of something else that could work for you) but here's some things that I've been doing to make sure I'm always in the Word:
    - I have a 30-min commute that happens to be the same time as Chuck Swindoll's Insight for Living. We're going through Ecclesiastes right now.
    - I have a daily bible verse app on my iPhone - I read it in the AM and then try to keep it in my head for the rest of the day. This same app sends me a verse in the evening, too.
    - A book I recently finished and loved was Comforts From Romans by Elyse Fitzpatrick. So.good. The chapters were short enough that I could read them in the AM with my breakfast.
    - Now I'm working on reading a chapter a night - based on recommended reading from our church that supports next week's sermon


    Something I did in the past (before I got married and seemed to have way less time!) was to read chapter in the bible, journal on it, and then journal my prayers, too. It helped keep me focused and on track.

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  2. Those are great tips. I like that it seems like you're doing little bits instead of trying to sit down and get through a huge chunk. Perhaps that will help it seem less like drudgery.

    Thanks so much for contributing and for reading. I really appreciate it. I'll try out some of your tips! It's great to know I'm not the only one!

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    Replies
    1. You're definitely not alone! An ongoing "struggle" of making sure I'm always putting Jesus at the top of my list...

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