They jump at me when I wake up, in the shower, every time my mind is empty for one second “must” “should” “ought” jumps in and it’s always more than one of them and it’s always “I’m the most important” and I can never figure out which one is important. So you know what I do. I write them down and “I’ll do them later.” Eight and a half seconds later some more appear to do and get added to the list.
I have a theory where they come from. I think Satan has a very small devil assigned inside my brain with a jar of “Instant To-Do Things” and when that window of clarity opens he quickly mixes a little ITDT powder with some brain juice and voila, “Hey, boss! I got him again.”
Woe is me. What to do?
I read a devotional each day from Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost For your Highest. In “The Devotion of Hearing” for February 13th he said: “The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me…. [W]hat hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don’t want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions.”
Boy what a place to be. And I’m there big time! God talks but I don’t listen because I’m too busy sorting out what to do. Oswald says, “God can say whatever He wants, but I just don’t hear Him.” So I’m selective in what I want to hear from God — is that what you’re telling me, Oswald?
You know what this comes down to. It is so simple and yet it is so hard. The answer is “Seek first the Kingdom of God” and He will take care of the rest. That’s it. It’s simple. It’s darn near impossible. My “Old Man” tells me, “Do your thing Jim. Bite the apple and do it ‘My Way.’ There’s plenty of time to get to all that God stuff later.”
So I get into things I think I must do and that little devil stirs the pot and keeps the juices flowing and clogs up my clarity with his jar of Instant Jumble and I tread the juice to keep my head above the ITDT pool.
Why can’t I remember that if I keep God in first place on the list He’ll take care of the rest? I believe the word is “trust.” Why don’t I remember it? Maybe it’s because I have too many things I must do.
I have always been a responder, pushed and pulled hither and yon by this and that demand. My focus has never been exemplary. The email bell rings and I answer it. I’m reading the Bible and it seems that some baroque music would be a nice touch. The mail is delivered and I rush to get the bills. How could I possibly write without a mug of green tea? Coupled with my other albatross, scrupulosity, and I am “whelmed”: Did I turn the night light off in the bathroom? Did I close the glove compartment door in my car? Are you sure you turned the heat down, or should I go back?
If Bertrand Russell was correct that “[o]ne of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important,” then uh-oh.
Response has been my nemesis. With God’s help I have worked very hard the past six months in correcting this. I have not had to use physical restraints, but the mental ones are restricting and the pain is much more severe.
I have learned to accept that God works in a very slow, deliberate way. I can’t rush Him. (Not exactly my idea of how Someone with all that power should be doing things, but it is His choice.) So I’m releasing this obsession with busyness and now I write down very few things. I trust God to help me remember the “Big Things.” He does. The little demons that caused me to jump out of my chair, bed, car (not moving of course) just aren’t important.
As I seek to be obedient to Him, He rewards me for trusting Him and giving up control. It has not been easy. It is (I am) not perfect, but the Surgeon has closed the wound and it is healing nicely. It is the most relaxed I have been since I snuggled safely in my mother’s womb.
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Jim Connelly and his wife live on the Island of Avalon in southern New Jersey. They have been married 49 years and have six children and twenty grandchildren.
