I love to read God‘s word and I have a clearer understanding of God’s message than when I started reading his word 25 years ago. Often times the general meaning is clear but, there’s often a deeper meaning that could be missed if not properly sought. I always pray and meditate asking for God to reveal his presence and truth, sometimes I need and like to discuss scripture with friends. It’s easy to read Luke 8 and see that there were women who Jesus had healed who traveled with Jesus and his followers and they had the means to financially support Jesus. Jesus told parables, many did not understand unless Jesus explained what the parables truly meant. The proper way to use a candle and how to recognize who you have true relationships with.
Like the women, I also have been healed by Jesus. That’s the easy part to recognize, but then I have to ask myself, am I traveling with Jesus? Am I financially supporting him and his followers? When I first read parables I was so thankful that Jesus explained the parables so I would know what he was talking about. As I’ve done various Bible studies on certain parables I learned there was a much deeper explanation to the parables than what I thought. The proper use of the candle of course is easily understood, how we are Gods light in this world. And the scripture about true relationships could get pretty deep, Jesus’ mother Mary and his siblings wanted to speak with Jesus and yet he implied that his family were those standing in front of him listening to his teaching.
Understanding God‘s word and implementing his truth in my life is not an easy matter. It should be a matter of gathering information and then doing, right? Simple, right? Wouldn’t it be nice if life was that easy?
Most of my adult life I worked as a sheet-metal worker out of Local #218 in Springfield. The last 10 years that I worked in the trade I ran crews for my employer. I was often responsible for managing the time of 4-12 other men. I excelled in my trade and became known as one of the best. I’ve been fortunate to have two professions I’ve thoroughly loved, but I love the one I currently work in now more as I help people. I only have to manage my own time, this is so much easier, NOT! It sounds like it should be easier but I have found that it is far from easy.
I’m reading a book called Today Matters by John Maxwell in hopes of improving my time management with the activities that will help me excel in this profession. I give quality customer service to my clients but sometimes passivity has kept me from achieving my productivity goals. Quality customer service is important in my profession however, success is measured by productivity numbers. I need to find people every year who I don’t know that I can work with. I often get caught up with thoughts of perfection and lose sight of the fact that I just need to make progress. Understanding the Pareto principle and how it pertains to my daily activities helping me to properly prioritize and make new habits today. Creating new positive habits are not any easier than breaking bad habits and sometimes you do both at the same time.
Understanding the basic principles, you would think it would be easy to jump right into a well organized day that will help me increase my production numbers for the year. I wish it was that easy. Like loving others, that’s God’s will for us and his truth that he conveys to us through his Word and the way that he lavishes his love upon us. I screw up, God still lavishes his love upon me. Other people annoy me, ut oh, do I lavish my love upon them? Again, God desires progress and not perfection.
Today I will be better than yesterday loving others and following a schedule.