Here We Go Again!
I am finding that with the new home, comes the fulfillment of many dreams and desires, one of which I began this month.
I am leading a bible study in my home every other week. It's nothing fancy and certainly not written by anyone of note. It's just some thoughts and revelations passed down from the Father's heart to mine and shared with a few friends who evidently have nowhere else to be on a Tuesday evening.
This study is fulfilling a need - a need to talk more than I already do. Hopefully, something of lasting importance will be passed on to someone who needs to hear it.
However, I must confess. I am a thinker, a planner, the creative mind behind countless ideas that have never materialized beyond that point. It's what I do best - create. Now following through... Isn't that supposed to be someone else's job?
Please don't get me wrong, when I think about teaching my lessons, my heart skips a beat and I can think of nothing I would rather be doing for the moment. In fact, when I first sat down to write out some notes, I knew what I would share each time we met as well as the personal stories and many of the scriptures we would discuss.
The problem lies in the preparing. That is where I get hung up. In the past I've failed to complete this stage of the process in various areas of my life. Preparation. Isn't that the most imporatant step? It has happened so much that I have begun to see a pattern.
I am not a good finisher. Oh, I do well enough when it is a requirement or something I am doing for someone else. However, when it comes to personal things, if I donot have a strong support system or a team to motivate and encourage me, I fall short almost every time. I now realize that this has got to change.
So I made a list. I call it my Finishing List. It is a list of things I have begun but not finished. Projects around the house, crafting ideas, studies, personal goals, etc. Everything on this list will eventually have an end date for when I plan on completing these tasks.
Being one who shows others how to better organize their homes, work spaces and lives, you would think I would be better at this myself. I struggle like everyone else. Being extremely organized just helps me conceal it better.
Notice that earlier I said eventually all these tasks would have an end date. Truth is, I do not have every project on the list yet. I know how my mind works. If everything I have begun but not finished was on my list today, I would become overwhelmed just by looking at it! That would be one long list!
That is why each month, I write down several projects (2 - 3 total, and all ongoing) I would like to complete by month's end. What I have found so far, is that along the way I end up completing a few more tasks that were never on the original list. Nice!
So, what's any of this got to do with the bible study I'm leading? Well, haven't you been listening? Someone has to write this thing! That means starting and finishing a lesson before it is even taught. Although I have lived them already, it is the recording of these truths that give me a bit of trouble. My love for writing helps me very little in this area.
I want to sit down with these women each time we meet and simply share with them the message in my heart. But it is in the preparing of those lessons that my words have added value and weight. Winging it, as I have been known to do in the past, will not fly here.
Thankfully, I serve a merciful and all-knowing God who long before this study was even a thought in my mind, prompted me to begin writing another study. I found it this past week as I was searching for some notes I had written earlier which pertained to my next lesson.
At first glance, I thought they were the notes I was looking for, but as I read on I realized these were written over three years ago. Yet it was the exact theme as the lesson I am currently working on. How did that happen?
That lead me to wonder. Is this current study the soon to be completed version of the one I began three years ago? Not only that but the one I am working on now was birthed from revelations I gained through my journey over the past three or so years. I began writing the other one about that long ago. They are not even remotely related through titles although they do have some underlying themes.
While pondering all of this and looking through those notes, I bet you can imagine what began to happen. I was motivated! I no longer dreaded the task before me of finishing this week's study! Here in my hands were the words in my heart, penned long before I ever knew I needed a finishing list.
Knowing my propensity for weakness in the area of completion, the Lord lead me to something He began through me years ago, in hopes that at this point in my life I would finally finish it.
Well if He's not willing to let it go, then why should I!
"...Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6
"Perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:4
I am leading a bible study in my home every other week. It's nothing fancy and certainly not written by anyone of note. It's just some thoughts and revelations passed down from the Father's heart to mine and shared with a few friends who evidently have nowhere else to be on a Tuesday evening.
This study is fulfilling a need - a need to talk more than I already do. Hopefully, something of lasting importance will be passed on to someone who needs to hear it.
However, I must confess. I am a thinker, a planner, the creative mind behind countless ideas that have never materialized beyond that point. It's what I do best - create. Now following through... Isn't that supposed to be someone else's job?
Please don't get me wrong, when I think about teaching my lessons, my heart skips a beat and I can think of nothing I would rather be doing for the moment. In fact, when I first sat down to write out some notes, I knew what I would share each time we met as well as the personal stories and many of the scriptures we would discuss.
The problem lies in the preparing. That is where I get hung up. In the past I've failed to complete this stage of the process in various areas of my life. Preparation. Isn't that the most imporatant step? It has happened so much that I have begun to see a pattern.
I am not a good finisher. Oh, I do well enough when it is a requirement or something I am doing for someone else. However, when it comes to personal things, if I donot have a strong support system or a team to motivate and encourage me, I fall short almost every time. I now realize that this has got to change.
So I made a list. I call it my Finishing List. It is a list of things I have begun but not finished. Projects around the house, crafting ideas, studies, personal goals, etc. Everything on this list will eventually have an end date for when I plan on completing these tasks.
Being one who shows others how to better organize their homes, work spaces and lives, you would think I would be better at this myself. I struggle like everyone else. Being extremely organized just helps me conceal it better.
Notice that earlier I said eventually all these tasks would have an end date. Truth is, I do not have every project on the list yet. I know how my mind works. If everything I have begun but not finished was on my list today, I would become overwhelmed just by looking at it! That would be one long list!
That is why each month, I write down several projects (2 - 3 total, and all ongoing) I would like to complete by month's end. What I have found so far, is that along the way I end up completing a few more tasks that were never on the original list. Nice!
So, what's any of this got to do with the bible study I'm leading? Well, haven't you been listening? Someone has to write this thing! That means starting and finishing a lesson before it is even taught. Although I have lived them already, it is the recording of these truths that give me a bit of trouble. My love for writing helps me very little in this area.
I want to sit down with these women each time we meet and simply share with them the message in my heart. But it is in the preparing of those lessons that my words have added value and weight. Winging it, as I have been known to do in the past, will not fly here.
Thankfully, I serve a merciful and all-knowing God who long before this study was even a thought in my mind, prompted me to begin writing another study. I found it this past week as I was searching for some notes I had written earlier which pertained to my next lesson.
At first glance, I thought they were the notes I was looking for, but as I read on I realized these were written over three years ago. Yet it was the exact theme as the lesson I am currently working on. How did that happen?
That lead me to wonder. Is this current study the soon to be completed version of the one I began three years ago? Not only that but the one I am working on now was birthed from revelations I gained through my journey over the past three or so years. I began writing the other one about that long ago. They are not even remotely related through titles although they do have some underlying themes.
While pondering all of this and looking through those notes, I bet you can imagine what began to happen. I was motivated! I no longer dreaded the task before me of finishing this week's study! Here in my hands were the words in my heart, penned long before I ever knew I needed a finishing list.
Knowing my propensity for weakness in the area of completion, the Lord lead me to something He began through me years ago, in hopes that at this point in my life I would finally finish it.
Well if He's not willing to let it go, then why should I!
"...Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6
"Perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:4
Comments
Post a Comment
...and your thoughts?