Oh! Oh, my!

There are times that I half-jokingly say that I'm really not qualified for this job. Then there are times that I am just humbled and awed that anybody ever leaves me in charge of anything, and I mean it wholeheartedly. I really thought I'd know more by now.

But something I realized -- fully realized, in my heart of hearts -- this week, is that it truly is enough to do what's been set before you. Do it well. Do it diligently. Let the rest sort itself out. I have a wonderful ability to see the overarching themes of things, to see the whole picture, and that's great. It lets me grasp new ideas quickly. It lets me bring an idea to fruition in a moment. It can be a lot of fun. But it also means that when things are wonky or askew, I see all the things that are wrong, and I want to fixthemallrightnow. I can't. But that doesn't stop me from trying to.

The thing is, though, I expend so much energy in trying to find that one, brilliant maneuver that will do it all (fix it all, finance it all, repair it all, build it all) in one fell swoop that I tend to forget to do what's right in front of me. I see it. I recognize that it's good. But it doesn't seem like ENOUGH. I feel compelled to find that magic bullet, that extra hour in the day, that superhuman strength to lift not just a car, but an entire train. In my efforts to find this elusive big gun, I end up neglecting the things that are legitimately within my scope of influence.

I also end up diminishing my understanding of just how powerful one word, one task, one job can be.

It seems silly when I put it like that, doesn't it? And yet, if we were to meander back through the years, we'd see time after time that I got hit by stress paralysis, fretting about things that were outside my purview, yet letting the things within my purview fall through the cracks.

This isn't new information. I haven't stumbled upon some hidden brilliance. Mother Theresa got it. Ghandi got it. The Bible is absolutely full of advice right along those lines. The painful irony is that I've even spent the better part of two decades telling the children about this. Do what you know to do, and ask for help with the rest. You can only control your own actions, so do your best with what you have to do right now. You don't have to fix everything, but you do need to take care of your own things. Gosh. It goes on. It's embarrassing, really. I should know better.

But I am learning, so that's good. And it's working, which is also good. When you tend to what's in front of you, and do it diligently, you free up the rest of the world to get on with what it needs to do. You have the bandwidth to see how things move together, and to see how the interconnectedness of everything is at play.

And you can know that it will be okay. You may not know how. You may not know when. But you can trust that it will be.

Be encouraged!

~ Dy