Control
Tom Shrader continues his Life Management series by examining how Jesus maintained control over His life despite external pressures. Using examples from Jesus' temptation and ministry, he identifies six things that can pull us off track: uncontrolled appetites, flattery and ego, lack of rest, wrong associations, career advancement at the wrong time, image-driven decisions, and allowing urgent matters to override important ones. The teaching emphasizes the need for deliberate living and discipline to steward our time, energy, and resources for God's purposes.
“You can be so overwhelmed by how out of control things are that you fail to pay attention to control the things you can.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Life Management (2013)
Recorded: October 10, 2013
Duration: 38 min
Themes: discipline, control, temptation, priorities, stewardship, focus, balance, purpose, feeling overwhelmed, struggling with priorities, busy professional, parent, young adult, new believer, career focused, time management issues
Scripture: Matthew 4:1-4, Luke 2:52, Mark 1, Mark 5, Luke 6, Mark 6:30, John 6, John 7, Genesis 3, 1 John 2:16, Galatians 5:22-23
Theological Themes: incarnation, humanity of christ, sanctification, spiritual discipline, christian living, discipleship, spiritual formation, biblical stewardship
Full Transcript
Session three. The series is called Life Management and it is a five week journey with tools to really assess life. So this is a little bit different. What we did in this is basically look at life and our life and the managing of that life and what we can learn from not just scripture but from a role model.
Here's what we said, and this is a little bit of a stretch of thinking for some. When we think about Jesus typically we think about His divinity. Rightly so - the Son of God, person of the Holy Trinity, came to save His people from their sins. But He was also fully human like us in every way except sin. So in some sense, battling those same tensions that we have, and we'll see some of the real part of that today.
We said He's like us. Probably the key verse for you to go back to over and over again is Luke 2:52. He's growing in stature, He's growing socially, He's growing relationally, He's learning. Last night I got a FaceTime call and the boys had baseball, so it's Lucy and Lucy's two and a half. We talked for five minutes and she did not stop eating ice cream. She never took a pause other than she said there's an empty chair next to me, why don't you come over? Which is really cute except I would have had to get up.
So Jesus had those moments. My favorite so far has been He was the Alpha and the Omega but had to learn the alphabet.
Looking Back at Purpose and Excellence
Here's what we can learn from the first two weeks. Purpose - I'm here for a reason. Jesus was clear to save His people from His sin. What's that purpose? What's that unique reason that God has you here where you are right at this moment?
Last week was the idea of reaching that - it was the idea of excellence. It was doing the best you can with what you have. My daughters always talk about this. My daughter Sarah just got A's in school and never really took a book home. Haley would study and study and study. She would get mostly A's and a few B's but she would study hours on end. So I think you could make the argument from this position that really Haley was more successful than Sarah in that she's working at it, reaching. Maybe she's - it's okay to be a B student. By definition most of you have to be average or average doesn't mean anything, or we're in Lake Wobegon.
Taking Control Today
Well today we're going to talk about control. Here's my undercurrent, here's my punch line: You can be so overwhelmed by how out of control things are that you fail to pay attention to control the things you can.
I'm working on a graphic right now for a talk I'm going to do in a couple of months and I have a picture of the BP - remember when the BP oil spill happened? And 24 hours a day up in the corner on the television was a picture of just the oil pouring out of there. You had this sense of helplessness. You saw it was there, you couldn't do anything about it. So I had that on one side and on the other side I have the debt clock running.
Now this is me, this is just how dark I am. I have the same feeling about both except I thought they could stop the oil spill. I don't know that they can stop this. Well when you surround yourself with that and then you listen to talk radio and you read by and large the same gloom and doom guys - liberal, conservative - after a while there's almost this sense of resignation. It feels like the older we are the more prone to go, gosh this is out of control.
Well here's my image now for myself. I can't control my height but I can control my width, and I don't do that. What are those things we can control?
Retaining Our Authority
Here's what we're talking about, starting with a big old fancy sentence: Retaining our authority, our control over our time, our energy, our resources. Basically so we can achieve, be part of whatever it is God left us here to do. God's given us something to do and I need to get control of my time, energy, effort, money and the old term is steward them.
So there's two aspects that you're going to have to put into play here. One is you're going to have to live with some level of deliberateness, planning.
I remember years ago we had our church staff Christmas party and we're driving home and I said to Susan that was awful. It wasn't bad, it was awful. And I said I'm going to take control the Christmas party next year and she said don't do that and I said why and she said well I'll end up doing it all. And I said well I don't know if that's true or not but we spent a year planning this Christmas party.
I'm in the Commons, which is our general area at church yesterday, and there for maybe an hour and two different groups came in. It's a gal usually about 22 and somebody who looks like her mom and a friend, and every time it's the same thing. What are they doing? Planning a wedding and they're planning the wedding. This will be here. Can we move that over there? Can that TV be? No we're not moving poles for you. It's a wedding.
It strikes me that more planning goes into Christmas parties and vacations and weddings than planning for life. There has to be a deliberateness to this.
The Budget Analogy
I use the picture of a budget. If you're making $30,000 a year do you need a budget? I guess because you need to know where it's going. You have a real finiteness but in a sense God has you on a budget. It's a matter of prioritizing thing and spending.
When you really need a budget is when you're making 300 grand because that's when you'll diddle this money away. That's when discretionary income just explodes. If you're living on 30 grand a year it's amazing - you're a double cheeseburger at McDonald's for 99 cents. If it's 300 all of a sudden you're a Zen burger kind of guy.
that money, and the difference is money that needs to really should be scrutinized. So it's this deliberateness, and then the second thing is discipline.
I was going through and I'm constantly in my fat-thin, well never thin, fat-thinner, fat-thinner cycle. I said to Susan I'm going to join a gym. She said really, if you joined a gym what gym would you join? I told her and she said you've had a membership there for a year. I said well that's not possible. She said I gave it to you for Christmas last year. I said well that was a terrible Christmas gift. I don't remember it, and it's where we coined the phrase there's something very different between joining a gym and going to the gym.
The Need for Deliberate Planning
So in this control thing we're saying we need to have this little bit of plan. We need to do a little bit of thinking. You need to understand that inertia, life, circumstances will pull us off this plan. I think as you get older this is even more important.
I hang around with a lot of people who are really busy who assume I'm busy, and I said well I'm kind of busy but I'm flexible. Jamie and I talked for probably 12 hours this weekend about how busy he is and how he needs—does this language mean anything to you—how he needs to create some margins, some space. I said Jamie my problem is the opposite. I need to create some boundaries.
I don't care where you are in this, here's what I know: this stuff is real and it's important. So talking about deliberate living, intentional living, discipline, what I want you to do is to gain control of your life. What we have on there and we're going to follow the outlines—you have the scripture references—look at some of the things that can pull you off target.
First Thing That Pulls You Off Target: Your Appetites
Here's the first one: your appetites, your desires. Matthew chapter 4 verse 1, Jesus led by the Spirit into the desert, He's tempted by the devil after 40 days of fasting and 40 nights and the scripture adds the phrase He was hungry. I always thought that was interesting. The tempter came to Him and said if you're the Son of God tell these stones to become bread, and Jesus answered, it's written man does not live by bread alone but by the word that comes from the mouth of God.
We'll come back and really unpack that, but there's something really interesting right here. Maybe we can make the connection. Sandy's in BSF and they're studying this passage this week, and when she mentioned it to me I said there's a whole connect here. Let me take you through it because it tells you a lot about human nature and a lot about the enemy.
In Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve, Eve specifically is tempted. After the temptation takes place, the serpent walks away and Eve saw that the fruit was good to the eye, it was good for food, and it made you wise like God. If we go back to 1 John chapter 2 verse 16, John's telling us that the things of the world are in opposition to the things of God and here's what he says: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life.
You see it in the garden, you see it at the very end of the book. How confident is Satan of this? It's the very temptation he comes to Jesus with. Look at all this, throw yourself out and they'll catch you, you can preside over all of this. Satan's playbook is pretty simple. He's going to come and the word lust means desire.
Understanding Desires Gone Awry
I say we—you don't want to be in this boat with me maybe—I tend to jump to the sexual part of it, but it's a desire, it's something that's gone awry. It could be something very good. It's good to eat, it's bad to eat too much. It's good to have stuff, but it's wrong when the stuff defines you. Is sex good? Yes, until it's out of control.
He said here are these appetites, is to get control of these basic appetites so I'm not just driven by every whim and impulse like a dog. So the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and what? Self-control. When we think of God's way and the world's way, we think of all sorts of different things, but it's as simple as attitude toward the stuff that God's placed in our lives.
What's going to pull me off the best plans? How many times have you watched—there's a show called American Greed—but here are these guys that have millions of dollars that are wanting millions of dollars more. There's no end to it and all of a sudden you see when they start talking to him, I'm not sure what happened, stuff just got out of control. Well it's those appetites that begin to run awry, to yield to the appetites.
Second Thing That Pulls You Off Target: Pride and Flattery
Here's the second thing that'll pull you off and there's some real similarities in two or three of these. It's all of a sudden people start telling you you're something special. Mark chapter 1, early in the morning, still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went off to a solitary place and He prayed. Peter and his companions were looking for Him. They found Him, they said everybody's looking for you, and Jesus replied let's go somewhere else so I can preach there also. That is why I've come.
We'll see it again, there's that moment at the end of Jesus' ministry where He's arriving to town and they're crying Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. They want to make Him king. All of a sudden somebody comes along and they begin to drive your agenda by turning you into something that's ego gratifying.
Here's the sentence I wrote: those who resolve to please God must not be afraid to displease man. Now those people are going to come along and begin to flatter you and you're vulnerable to that. Everybody wants to hear that. Everybody wants to hear there's something special, I saw something, you could really be extraordinary and we could really use you in this area. You fail to understand people are fickle.
So along comes Churchill and leads Great Britain in war like no one could, and months later they vote him out of office. I'm reading a book right now by a guy who played football at the University
of Mississippi then went into the NFL and he's a Mississippi guy. I'm learning a lot about Mississippi. I'm in a Manning phase, I'm in a Mississippi phase. These people love Mississippi. This guy then goes to Yale Law School, he becomes the chancellor at the University of Mississippi and their football program's on probation. They're trying to hire a coach, they hire Tommy Tuberville and he sits down with them and he said do you have any advice for me and this guy's advice was you have to resist the temptation that comes when you start winning. When all of a sudden you're above everything else. You're the man, you're the icon, you can't do wrong. That's when those feet of clay get exposed.
The Need for Rest and Relaxation
Here's the third thing we're talking about that will pull you off of your control: you need to make sure you have sufficient time to rest and relax. This runs so contrary to our culture. Mark 6 tells us the Apostles gathered around Jesus, reported to Him all they'd done. Now they'd gone out two by two, God's been doing incredible things, stuff's happening. I can't even imagine what that conversation's like.
Then listen to this verse, I think it's Mark 6:30. Then because so many people were coming and going, they didn't even have a chance to eat, Jesus said to them come with me by yourselves to a quiet place.
The Trap of Never-Ending Work
Most of you have or had jobs that never get done. So I was with a group of young real estate guys a couple weeks ago and they were talking about how tough the market was right now. And I said with all due respect, I sound like a crotchety old man, but I said with all due respect when I started in the market, this is really all you need to know: Jimmy Carter was president, but when I started in the market interest rates were at 16, 17 percent. How you going to do a deal in that?
I've been in the market through two or three cycles myself, plus this, and here's the mindset. When things are good, you got to work hard. Why? Got to make hay while the sun shines. When things are bad, you double your efforts because the market's tough and you got to work harder. Well okay, so you're doubling up when it's good and you're doubling up when it's bad, when is it you step off the gas a little bit? And FYI, if the market's bad and the market's really the problem, you working twice as hard doesn't fix the market.
The Reality of Modern Stress
It's really simple. I read a sentence the other day that I have no idea if it's true, but I'm going to treat it as it is because it preaches really well for me. He said the average high school student today has an amount of stress equal to a psychiatric patient in 1950. I don't know how you measure that. Other than to say high school kids are nuts, I guess. But they're talking about the level of the stress, the level of the stuff that comes.
You aren't this computer that you can just keep loading data into. And what Jesus is saying here, here they're having success and the people are coming and there's something in you. Somebody will come along from church and guilt you into it: listen, we've got people and they're here and we want to minister to them. Don't you want to work with people? Don't you want to save people? Don't you want to encourage people? Yes, well then you need to get into the game. Maybe not. Maybe you need to take a break. Maybe you need a rest.
Permission to Take Care of Yourself
When I meet somebody that says I haven't had a vacation in five years, that's not healthy. That's not good. You need to eat correctly, you need plenty of sleep, and you need exercise. I might do as I say, not as I do. And it's okay to have fun. It's okay to have that balance. Understand the pressure and the time you're under.
We had a conversation the other day with a dad, his kid's 15, and he was talking about tutoring, training, school, the competitive nature to be able to get in. He's given up on Ivy League schools, but he's saying just to get into like a really good liberal arts school has become so competitive. And forget the money and the part that brings into it, but the competitiveness of it. So you're beginning to see this stress to produce.
The Acceleration of Everything
60 Minutes or somebody did a story on New York City kindergartens and the waiting list to get in the prestigious kindergartens, and the tuition was like 20 grand a year for kindergarten. And everything's accelerated. We talked in here last week about the red zone. I've taken football now, and I've condensed it all down to just the plays that matter. Just the scoring plays. I've taken my food, I've condensed it down to I can microwave this in six, eight minutes.
Sandy's big on this. Sandy talks a lot about this, and it might be because we're a generational difference, but she's dealing with the generation under her, and she said there is no long-term thinking. There is no planning. She'll say, I'll sit down with a girl and say we're going to meet for a year, and they'll go, a year? Yeah, we're not going to be fixed at the end of the year. We're just going to maybe identify a problem at the end of the year.
My son in law Tyler talks about a day he and I met, and he wanted something. I can't remember what the discussion was. I remember exactly where he was sitting, and I said, Tyler, you're going to need five years before you even understand what that question right there was. Now what's kind of cool is to hear him now tell that story and say, when he said that, I thought, he's out of his mind. He's nuts. I'm not going to make it, and now he said, I'm going around telling these guys five years.
The Constant Barrage
Well, there's this intensity to life that pulls me right out. Even rest and relax. I don't know who came up with a law that every public place has to have music in it. I'm assaulted everywhere I go. If I go to a restaurant, if I go outside, if I go to the mall, it's a constant barrage. I read an article the other night, 1:30 in the morning, that those who are using devices for texting and going online for news tend not to sleep well. The irony was not lost on me. There's that constant pressure, and you've got to step back.
Be Deliberate with Your Time
You have to be deliberate. You have to take control of this. You have to carve out this time. And you have to be able to say no. I'm going to make a pitch here, and not just to move into a vacuum, but to move into a time where you actually think, where you contemplate the issues of your life, of why you're doing what you're doing.
Control Your Associations
Here are two or three more principles. Maintain a close control of your associates—who you're hanging out with. You have to make choices, and this is always difficult.
There are two passages here, one from Mark 5, one from Luke 6. Jesus getting into the boat, and the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with Him. Jesus said, "No, you can't go. Go home and tell your family what you've done." In Luke 6, one of those days, Jesus went out into the hills to pray, spent the night praying. He comes in the morning, He began to recruit His disciples, He takes 12 of them.
You have to be careful, and this gets into real control. You have to be careful who you hang with. Here's what scripture says, and here's what you tell your kids: "Bad company corrupts good morals."
The Challenge of Choosing Relationships
I was pretty easy in raising the kids. I had a few things I didn't flinch on, and one of them is, you're not going to hang around with that kid. My kids were smart enough to go, "Why?" And I go, "Because, with all due respect, the kid's a bad kid."
"But dad, his mom and dad are nice."
"I don't care about his mom and dad, and I doubt they are nice, but I don't care about his mom and dad. It's a bad kid, a bad tracker."
"Well, dad, aren't we supposed to love a kid like that? Aren't you the one that gets up there on Sunday and tells us that we're supposed to be salt and light? How is that kid ever going to come out of that? Who's going to be the person? Maybe I'm the person God's going to use in that."
And I said, "No, I'm pretty sure you aren't the person God's going to use in that, because you aren't going to be in that relationship."
Now, that's a total wisdom issue. Sarah would be the one who would argue that, more than Haley, and Sarah's argument's legitimate. The same thing is true in your life.
Jesus' Example in Choosing Associates
Somehow, Jesus said to this guy, you go away, and to these 12, you come to me. Then out of these 12, He said to Peter, James, and John, now you come in, and we're really going to hang together. You've got to figure out who you're going to invest your time and your energy, in some sense maybe your money, but your relational collateral with, and the opportunities are wide.
I would argue you need both. You need people in your life who God's placed there so that you can be salt and light in the midst of that life. Now, who they are, I don't know. You need to pray, you need to use wisdom, you need to use common sense. My experience has been that a lot of the people that I look at and say I would never touch are the very people that God saves.
I had a guy that came to me. He was an unbelieving guy, and he said, "I'd like you to teach me." I said, "I don't know what that means." "Take me through the Bible." I made a decision: 26 weeks, one-on-one, through the Gospel of John. At the end of the 26 weeks, I never saw the guy again. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. Those are just the choices you make. But saying yes to him said no to somebody else.
The Challenge of Like-Minded Community
What happens to those of us who are followers of Christ after a period of time? Our dance card tends to be filled with like-minded people. Not just economically like-minded, demographically like-minded, but spiritually like-minded. That's the challenge. You're naturally going to want to tug into these people with whom you share.
That's the problem I have with the guys I hang with. We all read the same books that all agree on the same thing. There's no pushing out of that. There's no expanding of that. You need to make this decision on who you're going to hang with. And those choices are filled with tension.
Watch Out for Misguided Advancements
Here's the next thing. This is really more, in '88 when we developed it: watch out for advancements, especially in career, that kind of lead to a decline.
Look at John 6: "After the people saw the miraculous signs that Jesus did, they began saying, 'Surely this is the prophet who's come into the world.' And Jesus, knowing that they intended to make Him king by force, withdrew." Jesus knew the timing wasn't right. Jesus knew things weren't right.
As you've got control in your life, work is a classic example. Along are going to come these opportunities that are going to move you away from those things that are really important.
A Real-Life Example of Choosing Priorities
I had a friend who was working for a big company, one of the big companies in the country. They came to him—he'd been there about three years—and they said, "Listen, you got it all. You got everything we're looking for. We want to fast track you. We need you to move."
He'd been spending his last however many years here in Phoenix. I love Phoenix. And he said, "I'm not going to move. I've already moved seven times for the company."
I said, "What, seven times? You've only been here three years."
He said, "But my father worked for the company. We moved when I was in third grade. We moved when I was in fifth grade. We moved when I was in seventh grade. And I'm not going, just because it looks right on a career. I'm not going to take a move that I think is going to be detrimental to the other areas of my life."
Does that track at all? Does that make sense? This guy's saying, "Listen, I made a choice when I had these kids that these kids were important to me, and I feel like there's a..." It doesn't mean it's right, by the way, nor does it mean you can never take an advancement. You know that. But he's saying, "I don't think this is the right time. I got kids, they're young kids. My parents are here. I can't take every one of these as they move along and say yes to them."
And it requires really asking yourself some hard questions.
Sandy is teaching me a lot, though not as much as I'm teaching her. Sandy is married, has a baby, and then dad leaves. Sandy's really bright—she has her undergraduate from Washington University in St. Louis. She makes a decision that, when she told me this, I thought was scary brilliant. She made a decision to be underemployed as a kindergarten teacher for 12 years, underemployed by her skillset, though she'll say it was the most demanding job she ever had that prepared her for real life so that she could be with her daughter in that setting.
She did not say, "I need to maximize all I can be." She said, "No, I have a role to this kid and this achievement is not as important as me being a mom." Now, if you're a single mom, you've got all sorts of tensions. Stay-at-home mom wasn't her deal. When she's telling me that, I'm saying, "That's really interesting to me."
When her daughter got to a point in high school, a little after, when Sandy felt she could travel, she transitions. As Sandy's doing this kindergarten teaching, she gets a master's in education and she's going to get a PhD in education. So what does she do? She gets a master's in business instead and raises her daughter and doesn't take any debt and stays with her daughter.
The Power of Self-Regulation
When her daughter was old enough, Sandy becomes a fundraiser. She's making six figures. She's a kindergarten teacher on Friday and raising millions of dollars on Monday. The gift skillset was there, but there was a self-regulation that took place. That's a fascinating story to me.
I don't see how far and high I can go if it's going to cost me some of the other things I value. If I say these kids are important to me—and I personally think once you have kids, you restructure your stuff. To me, they become a priority. They need you. They need you more than the client does, more than the boss does.
In that process, you may have to say no to some things that might personally be edifying to you because you're living for something or somebody else. Does that make sense? I'm not asking you to agree, but did that at least make sense?
Avoiding Image-Driven Decisions
Two more points. You need to avoid the decisions that are argued for image. John 7—this is Jesus again. I don't know if you realize the temptations He had. He's going around Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews are waiting to take His life there. And they say, "You ought to leave and go to Judea so that your disciples may see the miracles. Go do it. You're something special."
This gets back to one of my core deals, and that is how much we do that's driven by pride. My personality trait is I'm extraordinarily lazy. I mean, extraordinarily. Sandy is stunned. She's never met anybody quite like me—it's not mañana, it's like next year to me. I just don't have this drive.
But my besetting sin is pride, and so is yours. Pride, C.S. Lewis says, is a complete anti-God state of mind. And yet, all of a sudden, I'm in this sphere of influence—it could be anything—where I am concerned about what other people think about me, and enhancing their view of what they think about me.
The Status Symbol Trap
The illustration I use all the time: when I was a coal banker, I started, like everybody there that I knew, at whatever the bottom was. Then after a period of time, I had some level of success, and then was at another level of success. The challenge for me was, how do I let people know I'm successful without bragging? How do I let you know, so that when you just meet me, you intuitively go, "I don't know what it is, but he's got it"?
In those days, there were two easy ways to communicate it. One was your writing instrument, and the other was your watch. If you saw that little star at the top, you'd go, "Well, he's got enough to at least rent that pen." And then, most often, a Rolex.
This is not anti-Rolex. If you have a Rolex, wear it with pride. If you don't like it, give it to me. I'll take it. I'm not pushing this down. But I'm small-boned—a Rolex doesn't look good on me. I had a hard time, not justifying the money because I could write the check, but I had a hard time. I just didn't fit.
So I'm in real trouble. Here's what I came up with—this is brilliant: I'll get Susan a Rolex, and then when we're out, I'll go, "What time is it? Susan, why don't you tell us on your new..." and then she can go to the middle of the table. Now, I know that's silly, but if you're just honest—I don't say that to condemn. If you feel condemned by that, then you've got issues. I'm just saying that's how we operate.
The True Cost of Image
Look at this, drive this. When you walk up to a restaurant and there is a fancy luxury car that's about to be repossessed, and one that's totally paid for, they look the same, so your image of the person's the same. Remember our definition of debt? It's not what Bernanke uses, but here's our definition of debt: an instrument that allows me to pretend to be something I'm really not. And so all of a sudden, image matters.
Sandy and I have this conversation all the time. How much house do we need? We've got about 1600 square feet, and we don't use it. But what if somebody comes to visit? We live in resort heaven here. They don't have to stay with us.
Now think with me—this is a big deal. If I say I need 1200 square feet, but I have 2400 square feet, that other 1200 square feet is costing me time, energy, effort, money, taxes, furniture, air conditioning. I have to ask myself the hard question: why is that important? And if it's so you'll think more of me, listen: if somebody's into you because of your house, they're going to find somebody with a bigger house, or they're going to want to hang around and you're not going to want them there. I mean, it's a loser.
The Trap of False Urgency
That's what I learned from my own life with kids. That's my boy. That's my kid. That's what he did. Not because I'm proud of that kid and his achievement, but because of reflection on me.
Never allow the urgency to upstage the importance. This is one of my all-time favorite stories. This is Lazarus. Lazarus is sick. Jesus doesn't go to him. Lazarus is dead. Jesus says that's good, and now He goes. You can't let the urgent of the people around you overwhelm what you think is important.
Learning to Question "Urgent"
I was looking for those old pink slips that we used to get when we would go out to lunch. Remember the "while you were out" slips? I found some on the internet, but I couldn't find blank ones. I want to use one for a talk I'm giving.
I come in one day, and I've got five from lunch—five "while you were out" messages with name, time, and there's a box that's marked on every one of them. What is it? Urgent. I said to the girl, "How did you know it was urgent?" She said, "Well, they said it was." So I started calling them back, and one guy was trying to sell me a copier. That was the day I came to the conclusion that you have to add "urgent to who?"
I hate talking on the phone. I hate the phone ringing at home. Here we are in the middle of watching a ball game or something, and now, in the old days, you lost everything. Now you can at least hit a button. But here's somebody I don't know who intrudes right into my life based on their time.
Distinguishing Importance from Urgency
A phone call is a phone call. You're heading off in this direction, and all of a sudden, along come people, and they go, "This is really important." And you have to ask, important to who?
I got a call yesterday from somebody I don't know whose husband died and wants me to do the funeral. It was really interesting because I just taught this lesson. I'm saying, "What is it?" Well, they can only meet Friday. Well, I had plans for Friday. What were they? They were plans to rest and watch TV and read. So they might not have been urgent plans.
I stepped back, and all of a sudden, I said, "Here's this lady whose husband's died unexpectedly. She's calling me. That seems more important than anything I had on my schedule." You have to make those decisions over and over and over again.
Taking Real Control
When we talk about control, we're talking about getting control of our time, energy, effort, and money so we can be who God called us to be. Remember what we did the first day and we closed. We want to do the right things the right way for the right reason.
On the surface, a key word in that is "right." But let's go to the very beginning: "Do." There's a big difference between joining a gym and going to the gym. It's one thing to get my purpose down and begin to understand that I want to strive for that, but you need to, in a real world, understand these little things that'll pull you off track.
It doesn't matter who you are, how old you are. You need that plan, and these are some of the things—there's probably more—that are going to creep along and pull you off that track.
We'll pick up right there next week.
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Father, thank You for this. I confess that almost every day, here's my prayer: God, give me wisdom, and then give me some courage, and then give me energy, and then give me a peace that comes from knowing that You are alive and at work in my life.
God, help us look at these things, and it requires us sorting out our emotions and our feelings and all that goes with it. It requires hard examination and honesty, and we don't tend to want that. God, keep us focused on Your Son Jesus and on being salt and light to this world to know Him and to make Him known. That's our prayer. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.