Endless Tasks

Not my will, but YOURS be done...

Well friends, this has been a longer time coming than I had originally anticipated. I am still working on trying to balance and manage everything with home life, all while establishing this new journey into “blogging”. Finding that new rhythm I have found to be a challenge. But, I am working on it and I am so excited for when I finally hit the sweet spot of balancing out everything in our schedule! All that being said, I suppose the title of this letter is more fitting now that I have found myself over committed the last couple of weeks and unsure of what has happened to the structure of routine in our home. I pray this entry might find you feeling less alone, if you face similar daily challenges as laid out in this entry.

It was two years ago that I read a book titled How to Have a Martha Home the Mary Way. The most beneficial, and practical piece of advice that I thought was profound in that book was what the author called “a six list”. What is “a six list”? Well it is a daily list that you write out of ONLY six tasks that you must accomplish that day. The idea behind it is, we often will write out a To-Do List that has 15+ items on it in which we would like to accomplish. We look over this list time and time again throughout the day and wonder why on earth we have only checked off three of the boxes when it feels like we have been tirelessly working to get it all done. Having just six items on your list each day allows you to accomplish them all, while still giving yourself time to experience the day. I truly love how Elisabeth Elliot summed up this concept: “One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”

Now, to be honest, I have not been fully faithful to this keeping of “a six list” consistently for the last two years. However, when I do revive the habit of it, my days go so much more graciously. Or so it seems. I have recently been writing out my lists each night for about 6 weeks now, and for the most part have been doing well to complete the tasks in which I have set out to accomplish. The last couple of weeks though, everything feels like it is just piling up and I am failing at even getting one thing done. I find myself questioning “Why does it seem like I can do so well, and then all of a sudden landslide back into endless messes?”

Well friends, I know that the root of this comes from the terrible burden of PROCRASTINATION and UNNECESSARY DISTRACTION. Terrible weeds in my life that I still haven’t seemed to find the right weed killer formula for. But that is just it. I haven’t found the right weed killer…and you know what, I never will. It is only through Christ that I will find the formula to combat these bad habits and to have them completely uprooted. Scripture calls this, can you guess it? Sanctification! Yes this is an area in my life in which I have yet to be sanctified and freed from completely. Oh, how I pray that the Holy Spirit would complete this work in me sooner than later.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 10:14

The thing is though, I cannot just sit back and expect that God will work so faithfully in my life and rid me of these faults immediately. I can’t just pray hard enough and one day wake up and be the perfect homemaker. No, that just isn’t how it works! I have to do the hard work. I have to yield each day to Him. I have to be obedient and show obedience and practice the things in which I hope to become.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.
1 Peter 1:14

So, if you are feeling like you are catching 0 ground on the daily things that life demands of you. If you are tirelessly striving to accomplish more than what you maybe need to do each day, I challenge you to begin writing out “a six list” next week. Take this weekend to pray and seek out wisdom from the Lord. Ask that He would reveal to you, areas in your life where you need to purge, physical things, temporal things, habitual things, and offer your life to Him. Seek to do what you know must be accomplished each day, and yield the rest of the time to the Sovereign Lord who has a will for your life. May we do and be what the Psalmist says:

I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set your rules before me.
Psalm 119:30

In Christ,
Jenna