Anyone who knows me at all knows I love planning and organizing. Love may not be a strong enough word. :) I really do cherish using my brain to make charts, put to-do lists into spreadsheets to keep track of progress, rearrange a room and divide toys into well paired sets and close them all within a clear plastic bin... ahhhhh... talking about it gets me all excited!
But there are two steps to doing a project well. Planning is important, we all know the quote, "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail." And that is true, without a plan, the urgent and unimportant take precedence over the important things. You flounder for lack of direction, being tossed about by the waves of someone else's agenda.
As much as I love the planning step, my closest friends will know that I struggle on the second step, the implementing. It is almost like I use up all my energy getting the "perfect" plan made and I run out of steam before I even get to the doing part. Maybe it is because when I finally get started on the implementing step, things don't go according to plan and I get discouraged or overwhelmed and I just quit. Sad, but true.
Thankfully, the Lord has chosen recently to work on my perseverance. I have been blessed to be working on a committee that is planning a Women's Seminar at our church. It is an all-day event including breakfast and lunch. It is next Saturday. We have been planning for months and months and months. I have compiled pages and pages and pages of documents, created to help us stay on task. I have used parts of my brain not exercised since I worked in project management over 8 years ago. It has been AWESOME! I have been so blessed.
There have been challenges. I have been stretched to learn how to deal with fellow believers in a God-honoring way, even in the midst of conflict. At times, I have failed, I have spoken harshly or not pursued peace, and I have been humbled and learned to be quick to repent and seek forgiveness, restoring peace. I have been tempted to quit. Instead, the Lord chose to teach me to stick with it, persevere. Even through the trials. Especially through the trials.
There have been deadlines for decisions or actions, I have been early with some, and late with others. I have learned new ways of getting Word and Excel to do what I want it to do. It has been wonderful. I have learned so much through the process which I would not have learned without going through it.
This week is crunch time. There are many meetings, many "to-do" list items that need to be checked off. Over 200 women will come to our church to spend the day being taught faithfully from God's Word about how to Think Biblically. And even if everything falls apart, and the food is late (which I hope it isn't), or the coffee pots don't perk (which I hope they do), or there is feedback in the speakers (please, not that!), whatever happens... God has used this time to bless me in two specific ways... He has shown me a way I can serve in my local church using the gifts He has given me, and He has stretched me and taught me to be humble and keep working, to not give up, but to serve in all ways as I am serving unto Him.
Soli Deo Gloria!
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