One Thing at a Time

I just have a quick thought for today, and I realize it might seem like kind of a "duh" moment to everyone else.  It's been a pretty important revelation for me though, so I just thought I would share.  Plus, it's something I need to keep coming back to, so writing it down should really be helpful in that regard too.  Ready?  Here it is:

I can only do one thing at a time.

Pretty earthshaking, no?  Of course, there is always multitasking, and I don't deny it (even though it's a skill that many of you know I possess in very small measure), but that's not what I'm talking about.  No matter how good of a multitasker you are, you still can only be in one place at any given moment.  Whatever you're doing, be it one thing or fourteen, is all you're doing.  Put that up against the countless millions of things you could theoretically be doing, and multitasking doesn't seem to matter as much.  There are still way more things happening than you can ever possibly be part of.

That last thought is one of two things: really depressing or really freeing.  It's just a matter of how you look at it.  I think I've lived a lot of my life with the mindset that I had to keep from missing out on things.  If there was a party or event going on, I felt like I had to be there or I'd be missing out on something I desperately needed, something that would make my life better.  I'm sure my rampant desire for people's acceptance had something to do with that, but that's really another blog for another time.  For the purposes of this one, it's just important that I've often felt like I was missing out.  And of course, as I've said, each moment really does contain millions of things I'm not doing.  It can get a little overwhelming if you start thinking about it like that, and that's where you can start getting depressed if you aren't careful.

On the other hand, the freeing side of this whole thing is that we can choose to focus our attention on whatever we are doing instead of what we aren't.  What if that was all we had to worry about?  How do we choose out of all the possible choices the one thing we are going to do and focus fully on that in each moment?  Actually, that's pretty overwhelming too, on the face of it.  That's why we need the Spirit of God in our lives.

Believing that God has a plan for you and is sovereignly directing your life changes the whole equation.  We can actually ask God for directions, ask him to tell us by his Spirit what we should be doing, and he will!  Then, we just have to be willing to do it, but again that's a different blog.  If we know God is leading us, though, that should certainly raise our level of confidence.  If we actually start believing that his plan is best, we probably will spend a lot less time worrying about missing out on things.

Having a job has really helped put this all in perspective for me.  There are significant amounts of time that I just have to be there, some of which are also times that other things are going on that I might like to do.  Now, I can get all worried about what I'm "missing out" on (the party, the girl, the worship night, the free time, etc.) if I want to.  However, I can also choose to believe that God has called me to work as part of his larger plan to move me into the rest of my life and has provided this job for me to do that.  If that's true, then that's where I'm supposed to be, and it will end up being the best for me in ways I can't even understand yet (and some that I do understand, like $$). 

"We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).  All things!  Really, that makes it impossible to miss out on goodness.  Whatever we do, God is working for our good as we submit to his purposes.  That's true even if it doesn't seem good to us at the time because all too often what we feel has absolutely no bearing on what is true.  Maybe that's why we get so worried and upset about many things, when only one thing is needed (see Luke 10:42). 

So, if we feel like we're always missing out, it probably means one of two things: either

a). we don't really believe that what God is calling us to do is the best thing, OR

b). we don't know if what we're doing is actually what God is calling us to do.

The way out of this pattern, then, is to always be asking God what he wants us to be doing (note: even while we're doing things! Check out Philippians 4:6 and 1 Thessalonians 5:17--  Scripturally mandated multitasking!  Looks like I need some practice... yet another thing my job can be good for).  While we're at it, we can also ask for faith to believe that he will lead us and that what he tells us will be the best thing for us.  That's freeing and comforting to me because it puts all the need to make things happen where it belongs--with the One who can actually make them happen.  God doesn't call us to more than we can handle.  Well, actually he kind of does... but then he handles it.  He's in charge of the millions and millions of things.  All we have to do is one thing at a time.