I’ve been thinking lately about what matters to me the most. I’ve been having all these conversations in my head about what is really important to me. What people, activities, and dreams are truly important to me? Then I thought of the *Big Rocks* illustration, the one showing a vase, or container, of your day being filled with the big rocks (the things that matter to you) first before all the little pebbles (the things that come your way) fill up the time of your day. Then you know, the days have their way of becoming a week, then a month, then a year, and we look back and think, “Where has the time gone, and what have I accomplished that truly matters to me?”
My days here are busy and filled with responsibilities, work, duties, meetings, outings, errands, grocery shopping, planning, organizing, and travel. Just like you, we all have *stuff* that we have to do. Then there are things we want to do: lunch with friends, sit with our toes in dappled sunshine reading a book, visit with a neighbor, call a relative that lives far away and talk till we are done, serve one in need by sharing our talents and time, drive along a country road and enjoy the views and changing leaves…
The lists of our lives can be never-ending.
Isn’t that true? I know I can get caught up in my to-do list of daily, trivial, mundane tasks and never accomplish my goals and dreams. Anyone else? I believe we were made for more than just existing. More than just the mundane. I believe that there is much beauty to be found in the mundane. That we can see, and seek, and find joy, in the truly trivial tasks of our daily lives.
I think that in the doing of the duties, we can find real beauty.
But I also believe that GOD has put goals and dreams inside of each of us. Which, before I wax poetic, I want to get back to the post title:
Do I ever really want to go to the gym?
Only if my friends are going. Seriously. I can honestly say, that I don’t ever really want to go to the gym. There, the truth is out. Why then do I go, you may ask. I go because I’ve decided that going to the gym is one of the Big Rocks in my life. It is important for me to exercise. Exercise is of value to me. Why?
Sometimes it is easiest to gauge importance by the reality of what we no longer have.
(((Insert tears.)))
And here is my list of what I don’t have:
My dear dad
My beloved mother
You get the idea. I am impacted by what I don’t have. My list doesn’t stop there; but for the sake of staying on topic and getting on with the point, I will proceed. What is on your list?
What do you no longer have that impacts your action of today?
I don’t finish my day and think, “Wow, Lora, you’ve had a full day, why don’t you go to the gym and exercise for your own health?”
I usually finish the thought at the end of the day with: “It would be good to just organize that stack of papers, or clean up the kitchen, or tidy up the living room…” You get the idea, right? All those things are on my list, or according to me, need to be done.
But, I don’t want to be good at that.
At the end of my days, I don’t want to look back and say, my papers were organized, my kitchen counters were clean, there was not a thing out of place in my living room. I am realizing the difference in the Big Rocks of my life and the little pebbles that come my way.
I am going to go to the gym because I value my health. I value exercise. I value the way I feel after I have gone and exercised. I have the energy to quickly do all the *things* after I exercise. And, I do it joyfully, and I find beauty in doing the routine tasks. I get the Big Rock of exercise in, and am allowed to also get some pebbles in; but please notice, the pebbles come after the Big Rock.
Sunday night, six of my dearest friends came over.
I had no makeup on.
I was in my tennis clothes.
The sink was piled with dishes.
I had paperwork all over my desk.
“That list, Lora, is a little pebble list.”
The six of us sat in my Jesus Room and talked and prayed and sang and laughed and cried. Well, some of us cried. Okay, I cried. We had a really good time.
“The time shared with them was a Big Rock.”
I am in the midst of defining the Big Rocks versus little pebbles in my life. I know the friends that came here on Sunday night was a Big Rock in my life. I also know that going to the gym is a Big Rock for me.
What about you? Why do you do what you do? I am asking myself this same question. I am at a time in my life where there is some time that is open for me.
What am I going to fill that time with? Big Rocks or little pebbles. How about you? I am asking myself some more questions:
What am I doing toward my intended purpose?
What is simply urgent, and what is truly important?
What do I say is important; but never do?
What am I purposing to do?
What am I allowing to fall away
So that I may accomplish what is truly important today?
Big Rocks or Little Pebbles?
The true work can convene when the surroundings are disheveled.
The LORD is teaching me,
He is allowing me to see
The value of what I do
Is not always seen to others or you.
Let Eternity be the Why
And the epitaph when I die:
What was eternally valuable was done,
And she lived to her fullest and left no Big Stone undone.
Hallelujah.
