December 20 2017 – Click here to listen
Since Thanksgiving I have spent considerable time setting goals for next year and re-prioritizing my life in an effort to exert maximum energy in a focused manner to achieve my goals for next year.
The year end holidays are a good time to do it, because it’s hard to setup meetings or otherwise conduct business at this time of year. As I reviewed my 2017 calendar, I was appalled at the amount of time and wasted money I spent last year attending useless meetings where nothing was accomplished aside from all of us pontificating and pushing hot air around the room.
Aside from meetings, I waste an enormous amount of time reviewing the news daily. Most of it is salacious, fake, and biased and as I pondered it, I realized that it accomplishes little more than annoying and depressing me, thus I’m cutting this back to a minimum.
Another big item was “biting off more than I can chew.” I have been mightily distracted with too many disparate projects and I end up doing many things poorly instead of just a few well. I’m determined to be more disciplined and focus like a laser beam on just the few. I recently moved and ended up giving away or throwing away many of my treasures. It was so-o-o-o difficult to do, but it was necessary. The same is true of too many projects. I can only wear so many shirts and I can only work on so many projects.
E-mail and texts have also gotten out of control. I could spend my entire life being a slave to this beast. When I try to get caught up and answer the many thousands of them, it generally initiates a response which creates a never-ending cycle of e-mail hell. I must find a way to combat this too. (Please don’t take this as me not wanting you to respond to Words for the Day I love to read them – good and bad.)
I’m determined to battle these problems in 2018. They are expensive and eat up precious time. As I get older I realize that time is my most prized asset and it is dwindling away with each passing day. Money darn sure cannot buy more of it and nothing can add a single minute or second to my life aside from God’s intervention.
This seems to be lost on younger folks. They envision a big barrel filled with time but with a tiny hole in the bottom of the barrel leaking some out. In their youth they don’t even consider that even big barrels eventually will empty themselves through the tiny hole. When you get down towards the bottom of the barrel like me it becomes noticeable.
Yesterday the managing editor for the Jesus Alliance and her husband attended a funeral for a friend who suddenly died of a massive heart attack. He was in his early forties and seemed to be in excellent health. The barrel ruptured, and his life ended prematurely.
My life could end today, but hey I have goals and a plan. I am determined to work efficiently and guess what? I’m including in my plan some time for enjoyment too. Fishing, hunting, spending time with family and those grandkids. Hopefully this old rusty barrel will hold together through 2018 and even beyond, but if not, I’m looking forward to paradise where the barrel is always full, and no pesky holes can ever steal my time.
2 Peter 3:8
But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.