My Daily Planner
By Shauna Leis
“Morning by morning he dispenses his justice, and every new day he does not fail, yet the unrighteous know no shame.”
Zephaniah 3:5b
Oh, the thought of opening up my daily planner right now just makes me want to cringe inside mentally. Every hour of every day for the next several weeks is booked solid, and in some areas there are double bookings and even triple bookings. My day consists of getting up around 5:00 a.m. and barreling through every minute until collapsing into my bed around 11:00 p.m. with just enough time to sleep before starting the next jam-packed day. Right now is especially difficult with my son’s football, my daughter’s gymnastics, my regular job, being our company’s United Way campaign chair, preparing for our company’s Ryder Cup support, church activities, and writing these daily devotions.
So, what do I do? I find myself slinking in before God at the beginning of the week and asking Him to just figure out how to bless it somehow, someway. I know that there is very little time for Him in all of that, and I humbly ask Him to help me find time in there to spend with Him. The imagery that God reminded me of has forced me to rethink how I approach Him with my calendar.
Have you been through Stephen Covey’s, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People?” In this class, Mr. Covey uses a great example to show us how to fit it all together. He has a woman trying to put sand and rocks all into a big glass vase. He hands her several large rocks and tells her that she must figure out how to get the big rocks into the glass vase already filled with sand. No matter how she tries to shove them down in there, the sand barely moves, and she can only fit one or two of the large stones in there. Next, Mr. Covey shows her an empty container sitting nearby and asks her to rethink her strategy. She works to place the large stones in the jar first and then pour the sand down over top. Miraculously, all of the rocks and the sand now fit into the single jar together.
So, what do these represent in our lives? God, all of our prayer time, and our Bible study time represent the large rocks. If we will put these things into our lives first, then all of the other small activities will fall in around these larger things. Just like I was doing earlier, God does not want us to bring to Him an already full daily planner for the month (or in some of our lives the year). He longs for us to be so dependent on Him that we bring Him our empty calendars and say, “Fill them, Lord, with Your activities, instead of our own. Use us to further Your kingdom.”
Matthew 6:7-11 says, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.’” Even Jesus gave us the perfect indication through His prayer example. He said to “Give us TODAY our daily bread.” He did not say to give us bread for a month that we could stick in the freezer or vacuum seal for the next several weeks.
Isaiah 50:4 indicates, “The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.” Each morning, we need to wake up and give our day over to Him. Our ears need to be tuned into Him as He will bring us a fresh word each and every day. Do you see that He wakens us and will fill up our days full of kingdom activities if we will only let Him? Are you willing to trust Him today with your daily planner? Trust me, there is no one more capable than He is to better order your day for you.
Pray with me: Dear God, we know that we will fill up our days with so many things that are urgent and just have to get done but are not really important when it comes to Your kingdom. How often we bring to You our already full days and ask You to just bless them somehow. We are even bold enough to cry out sometimes and ask You for just a few more hours. Lord, teach us to bring our empty calendars to You instead and have You fill them with activities that will further Your kingdom and glorify You. We love You so very much and pray all of this in the precious name of Your Son, Jesus Christ! Amen!