Piles of books. Stacks of magazines. Untried recipes. Unfinished projects. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Truth be told, I have way more plans I want to accomplish and things I want to do then time to finish them all in. I often feel frustrated when I see around me the evidence of my yet-to-be completed projects.

Lately, well actually over the last year, I’ve felt the pull from God to get this under control, to learn how to hone my ability to truly focus on a task from start to finish. It’s not that I never complete anything. I’ve even hit a milestone this past year with one of my finished projects. It’s more that I’m not the best at planning and prioritizing. So, before I look at ways to improve this area of my life, I need to understand what throws me off track. Maybe this honest look will help you too.

Ways to Derail Your Projects

1. Not having a long-term plan. It seems to me that the people who get the most done are the ones who plan  ahead of time. They sit down with a calendar and plot out what each of their major projects will be for the entire year and roughly when they will work on each one. They then further break them down into monthly, weekly, and daily goals.
2. Not allowing enough time. I’m learning that most projects–whether they be writing books or reorganizing closets–take  longer than I think they will.
3. Not planning for the urgent. Emergencies and last-minute changes to my schedule happen more often than I realize. So that means I need to add even more time to point #2.
4. Procrastination. Perhaps a beautiful day is beckoning me outside, or someone calls with an invitation that’s hard to resist, and I put off my priority for the new thing that’s come along.
5. Being overwhelmed by the size of the project. Sometimes I just don’t know where to start, so I don’t.
6. Not having God’s perspective on a project. On the other hand, I also have a tendency to jump right in with an exciting idea before I’ve really hashed it out with God to see if this is something I should be pursuing.
7. Being overcommitted. Impulsively saying yes to too many things. This follows closely on the heels of #6.
8. Not taking my goals seriously. So often, I will stop what I’m doing to help someone else. This can actually be a good thing, but not when it becomes a regular occurrence. As my husband says, “Sometimes you have to learn how to say ‘no.'”

Does God Want Me to Be Productive?

You don’t have to read too far in the Bible to see the importance God placed on doing things in order. God created our world in an orderly fashion, and the universe functions in an orderly manner. Consider the following facts: *We know that every year we cyclically move through four seasons. *We can see an order to how animals live. *God gave Moses detailed directions on how to build the ark and finish the mammoth project of rounding up all the animals.*Look at all the precise detail that went into building the tabernacle. *In the book of 1 Corinthians, God makes it very clear that He wants our worship services to have a sense of order to them when He says in verse 40 “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” *The human body is a masterpiece of design.

It just makes sense that God wants us to have a semblance of order, balance, and thought in our daily lives too.

In the next blog post, I’m going to address ways to overcome some of the obstacles of finishing what we start. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your thoughts on what keeps you from being productive in your days. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks and pray on!

I need your help with something. I’d like your feedback for a blog post I’m writing, so here’s my question: do you have trouble finishing what you start?

I seem to leave a trail of unfinished books, projects, and ideas in my wake. Let me know if you struggle with that, too, and any thoughts that you have on this problem. Just leave your ideas in the comment section below and thanks for your help!

Fish and Loaves Faith

“Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barely loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” John 6:8

Read John 6:1-15

Miracle Story

Of all the miracle stories in the Bible, this is one of my favorites–for many reasons. First of all, I love the fact that the lunch of five small barley loaves and two small fish belonged to a child.

Understand, the Bible leaves some of the details of this exchange to our imaginations, so I don’t know that this is exactly how the story unfolded, but I imagine it playing out in the following way:

The Bible tells us that Jesus asks Philip where they should go to buy bread for the five thousand people to eat. Philip replies that eight months of salary wouldn’t be nearly enough to feed the crowd of people.

Here is where things get interesting. I think that perhaps a young boy who is sitting close to where Jesus is teaching hears the conversation between Jesus and his friends and eagerly offers his lunch that his mom packed for him that morning. It would be just like a child not to see the futility of his meager lunch feeding such a crowd, but to instead faithfully hand over his bread and fish to Andrew to give to Jesus. And it would be just the typical adult thing to then bring it to Jesus—with the caveat of “but how far will they go among so many?”

Spark of Faith

Jesus was just waiting for that spark of faith. He takes the lunch, has everyone sit down, gives thanks for the fish and bread, and passes it around–and everyone took as much as they wanted (v. 11). After they had all eaten, Jesus wants nothing wasted, so the disciples gather up 12 baskets of leftovers!

Doesn’t it seem that we could learn a lot about faith from children? In most cases, their minds have not yet been clouded by the harsh realities of life. It’s not hard for them to believe in the improbable, or the impossible.Their eyes can easily see the thin space between the reality of this world and the unseen heavenlies where angels, miracles, and God all live. Jesus took the little boy’s lunch and multiplied it into a buffet for 5000.

That’s the kind of faith that Jesus is watching for, that we need to cultivate. A faith that causes us to unflinchingly step forward and offer up our bread and fish to Jesus to multiply beyond our wildest expectations.

When we feel that nudge of the Spirit to take our offering to God, we need to stamp out the adult voice that rises up with a “But, …” and just give it. Or just do it.

What does this look like in our lives?

• The nudge to give that $20 to a charity, even though it’s just a drop in the bucket of what’s needed.
• The nudge to teach a Bible class, even though you’re not a “real” teacher.
• The nudge to keep praying for your wayward child, even though you haven’t seen any change in three years.
• The nudge to start a Moms-In-Touch prayer group at your child’s school, even though you’ve never led anything in the past.

A vibrant faith requires that I present to God what I have. Jesus is waiting for people with a fish-and-loaves faith to take Him up on His promises so He can to equip us (2 Timothy 3:17) and set us loose in His kingdom. The results are up to Him.

What do you have to offer Him today? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Fish-and-Loaves Faith is the second post in our  faith series. Please leave a comment below on your thoughts, feelings, or experiences in growing your faith.

Image courtesy of [FrameAngel] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

Read John 5: 1-9

Don’t you just love that Jesus isn’t afraid to live His life on the edge?

As chapter five opens, we see that Jesus is once again in the middle of a group of people who aren’t the up and comers of Jerusalem: they are all blind, lame, or paralyzed (v 4). Can’t you just picture Jesus walking by the Sheep Gate and being drawn to the crowd of helpless people lying by the pool? Jesus always has the poor, the orphans, the helpless, and the sick on his radar, and I can just imagine Him making a beeline for the worst one there. Verse six tells us that Jesus learns that one of the men has been sick for 38 years.

Jesus then asks him what seems to be an obvious question: “Do you want to get well?”

Why would Jesus ask this question when the man has been lame for 38 years? Surely the answer has to be yes. I wonder if Jesus did this because the man has lost hope, accepting this affliction as his permanent reality. Perhaps Jesus needs to reawaken in this man his dreams of a normal life and a healthy body.

You’ll notice that the man doesn’t directly answer Jesus’ question with a yes or no. He instead offers an explanation as to why he hasn’t received healing—he has no one to help him in the pool when the water is stirred, so someone else always gets there first. If that’s the case, it’s no wonder the man is discouraged.

Probably every day a friend or family member on his way to work carries the lame man to the pool and then picks him up on the way home. All day the lame man simply waits and watches the water—we don’t even know how often the Spirit stirs the water. Every day, week, or month? At the first ripple of water, the man desperately tries to crawl or roll to the pool, but for 38 years, someone else always gets there first.

I can just imagine that Jesus stays quiet until the lame man stops talking. Jesus locks eyes with the man and tells him “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” And just like that, he does. Thirty-eight years of atrophy gone in one second.

What can our friend from the pool of Bethesda teach us?

• A vibrant faith reawakens hope in our lives. When the lame man meets Jesus, he sees the power of God in Jesus. This ignites his faith, and Jesus heals him.

• A vibrant faith sometimes requires us to make a move. The lame man has to act on that faith. He takes Jesus at his word, picks up his mat, and stands up.

Where has hope died in your life? Jesus is trying to get your attention, look you in the eye, and shake you out of your spiritual paralysis.

What is he asking you to move out of and on to in your life? Like the lame man did, we need to pick up our mats and leave behind the years that crippled us. Faith flies in the face of years of bad habits, patterns, and stagnation and moves us toward health and healing and possibilities.

This is the first blog in our faith series. Please leave a comment below on your thoughts, feelings, or experiences in growing your faith.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Faith is such an important part of our lives as Christians. The very essence of our relationship with God is based on our faith in Jesus. We just take it on faith that He died for our sins and because of that we can be reconciled to God.

Faith and prayer are also intertwined. While I don’t pretend to understand all of the intricacies of how God uses our prayers, I am fascinated by prayer and have felt God calling me to spend some time studying the subject of faith. Might I be able to increase my faith by meditating on scriptures about it? Would God be able to use me in a bigger way if my faith were bigger? I’d like to explore those possibilities, so I’m beginning an ongoing series on faith.

Periodically, I’ll be writing blog posts about faith. You can find these under the Blog tab on our navigation bar. When you hover the cursor over this tab, you’ll see the Faith series drop down from the rest of the blogs.

I’ll post the first blog in this series this week, but for now let me leave you with this scripture to reflect upon and pray about:

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 NKJV

Feel free to join me on this faith journey.

Pray on!

And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and  poured it on His head. Mark 14: 3 (Read Mark 14:1-9)

In my Bible study the other morning, I looked at this passage from Mark. A couple of things really stood out to me as I was reading.

Simon the Leper

The first thing I notice is that Jesus is at the house of Simon the Leper. We don’t know this for certain, but most likely Simon is one of the lepers that Jesus miraculously heals in the Gospels. While he was probably healed physically, most likely some stigma was still associated with him, which would make most people want to avoid him. Do you notice how the text still refers to him as Simon the Leper?

How would you like to be forever immortalized as a disease or perhaps a bad character trait you had as a child or adult? I would hate to be introduced as Jane the Fearful wherever I went! But what I love is that Jesus didn’t let a little thing like a disease or bad name slow him down. No, He went right to Simon’s house and had dinner with him. Actually that’s very reassuring, isn’t it? When I’m feeling like I’m not “good enough” for Jesus to want to spend time with me, I just  think of this story or the story of him going to the tax collector Zacchaeus’ house, and I realize Jesus accepts me just as I am.

Mary of Bethany

The aspect of this story that just does me in is the woman’s response to Jesus. John 12:3 identifies this woman as Mary of Bethany, Lazarus and Martha’s sister. Some believe that she is the same woman as Mary Magdalene, but we don’t know for certain.

What she leaves no doubt of are her feelings for Jesus.

She takes her alabaster flask of spikenard, breaks it, and pours it on His head. What a lavish, all-in response to Jesus! I had to stop and think about this for a few minutes. First of all, Mary had to have known that she was opening herself up to ridicule and criticism by doing this, and that’s exactly what happened. Women were supposed to stay in the background in this culture, and she boldly moves forward and does what the men probably considered to be a brazen act.

To make matters worse for herself, she used a very costly bottle of perfume. Spikenard had to be imported from India, and the cost of it was about a year’s salary for a working-class man. Sure enough, she was roundly criticized for not selling the perfume instead and then using the money for the poor.

After reading about her actions, I had to ask myself, Am I overwhelmed with that kind of love for Jesus that I don’t care what others think? On the contrary, I think that too often I am inhibited by what others may think.

Rather than rebuke Mary, Jesus instead rebukes those who are criticizing her and says that what she has done will be told to others as a memorial to her. And we are still reading about her and her brave act today.

I want to more like Mary in my response to Jesus. And to do that, I’ll have to learn to “get over myself.” Whether I want to be more bold in how I worship in church or more bold in using my money in ways Jesus wants me to, it certainly gives me something to pray about!

How about you? Please share any thoughts that you have about Mary’s act of love and devotion and how free you feel to express your feelings for Jesus.

Pray on!

Illustration courtesy of https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_Bibel_in_Bildern_1860