What's Your Biggest Rock?

This is a follow-up to my last 2 posts – Urgent or Important and Big Rocks First. If you haven’t read them, go there and read those first.

Rocks are like priorities. Only so many rocks can fit in a jar. Only so many activities can fit in one week. The issue isn’t prioritizing your schedule, but scheduling your priorities. Put the big rocks in first and then see what little rocks will fit.

Our greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important. An urgent task, calling for an immediate response, may not be important in the long run. By the same token, an important task may not appear urgent. For example time spent in Bible study and prayer, visiting a sick friend, or reading a significant book isn’t often at the top of a “to do” list. Because those things can wait, they often get lost in the shuffle.

Over the years my greatest continuing struggle in my Christian life has been making adequate time daily to spend with God. Since this time is so important, Satan will do everything he can to squeeze it out. Yet I know from experience that only as I spend time with Him can I accurately identify my “Big Rocks” and place them in the jar. I like to make to do lists and then complete all the things on the list. In my job, I can never complete the list. I never go home “caught up’. It is a constant battle to determine what gets my time today and what can wait. What I need to remember is how Jesus succeeded. He did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or all the things He would have liked to do, but he did finish all the work which God gave Him to do. The only alternative to frustration is to be sure that I am doing what God wants. Nothing substitutes for knowing that this day, this hour, in this place I am doing the will of the Father. Then and only then can I think of all the other unfinished tasks with calmness and leave them with God.

P.T. Forsyth once said, “The worst sin is prayerlessness.” We usually think of murder, adultery, or theft as among the worst. But the root of all sin is self-sufficiency – independence from God. When we fail to wait prayerfully for God’s guidance and strength we are telling God that we do not need Him. How much of our service is characterized by “going it alone”?

The opposite of such independence is prayer in which we acknowledge our need of God’s instruction, provision, and protection. Prayerfully waiting on God is crucial to effective service. Like the time-out in a football game, it enables us to catch our breath and fix new strategy. As we wait for directions, the Lord frees us from this tyranny of the urgent. He shows us the truth about Himself, ourselves, and our tasks. He impresses on our minds the assignments he wants us to undertake. It is not God who loads us up until we bend, crack, or break from stress. We bring this on ourselves.

A quiet time of prayer and meditation to start the day refocuses our relationship with God. Ask Him to help you prioritize your tasks to be done and “pick out your big rocks”. The busier you are, the more you need this time. It has to be the “biggest rock in your jar.”