Spanning more than four months on the blog, C.J.’s 17-part series on biblical productivity has finally concluded. Via email and in personal conversations many of you have requested that the series be provided as a single document to make it easier to print and read. And today we are making this entire series available as a single 36-page document. You can view and download the PDF by clicking here (0.6 MB):

For anyone interested in reading the series online, I’ve included a final series index of the original posts (see below).

Thanks for reading!

Biblical Productivity

1. Are You Busy?

2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator

3. The Procrastinator Within

4. Just Do It

5. In All Thy Ways

6. The Sluggard

7. Time. Redeemed.

8. Roles, Goals, Scheduling

9. Roles (Part 1)

10. Roles (Part 2)

11. Goals (Part 1)

12. Goals (Part 2)

13. Goals (Part 3)

14. Goals (Part 4)

15. Scheduling the Unexpected

16. The To-Do Lists Are Never Done

17. Self-Sufficient

 

As the typical day unfolds, the unexpected expectedly happens. With one eye on the clock and another on our schedule, we can often watch our planning derail throughout the day. And as I realize my plans for the day will not be flawlessly executed, my soul has a tendency to be weighed down by accumulating cares. But rather than humbling myself as I should, I find myself vulnerable to self-sufficiency, at risk of relying upon my limited strength and wisdom. This is pride.

If we are not watchful, our burdens will subtly accumulate over time, and will gradually weigh down our soul. But it doesn’t need to be this way. There is a biblical alternative.

Casting Pride and Casting Cares

Scripture calls us to cast all our anxieties on God, because he cares for us.

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7, ESV)

Casting all my cares upon the Lord is a means of humbling myself before the Lord. In reading these passages we discover that casting our cares upon the Lord falls under the command to humble ourselves. Casting our cares is an expression of humility. When I fail to cast my cares upon him, I display prideful self-sufficiency.

A Few Words of Prayer

As I make my way from meeting to meeting, decision to decision, and phone call to phone call, I find the counsel of Charles Spurgeon very helpful. “I always feel it well,” he wrote, “to put a few words of prayer between everything I do.” Throughout his busy days, Spurgeon scattered words of prayer between each activity, a model I have sought to emulate over the years.

The content of my “few words of prayer” is not unique and if you overheard them, you wouldn’t be impressed. I am a simple man and when I think of casting all my cares it is a simple acknowledgement of my dependence upon God and my need of grace throughout the day.

But the very act of pausing in a busy day to pray is an act of weakening pride in my life, acknowledging that I am a dependent creature. I am not self-sufficient.

And taking a brief moment to humble myself in prayer makes all the difference in my soul throughout the day.

At its root, weariness is often the result of pride and self-sufficiency in my life. When I neglect casting my cares upon the Lord, the heavy fatigue of weariness will settle into my soul.

Casting our cares upon the Lord and humbling ourselves before him are critical activities, regardless of how busy we are. And this practice cannot be replaced by hours of careful planning and scheduling.

How about you? Do you follow the practice of Spurgeon and “put a few words of prayer” between everything you do throughout each day? Are you casting cares or accumulating burdens? Are you humbling yourself before the Lord or displaying self-sufficiency?

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Biblical Productivity: This post is likely the final in C.J.’s series. For a complete index of the series posts click here. A printable PDF of the entire series is forthcoming.
 

Readers who have followed our series on biblical productivity (planning, prioritizing, and scheduling) and who may not be completely tracking with us, thinking that my approach requires too much work, too much of your time, and squeezes out all the spontaneity from life—have I got an alternative approach for you!

Meet my good friend David Powlison. Today in the third part of my interview with the biblical counselor and author, you will see that David sometimes chooses to “waste” time as a way of increasing productivity! David explains why.

David, what single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

Effective is not the same as efficient. Productive is not the same as mass-production.

I’ll give a bit fuller answer here, as I think my response is likely a bit unusual. I’ve had to learn how I work best, and it’s not the cultural ideal of tightly scheduled efficiency. For me, effective and productive often operate in ways that seem quite “inefficient.” I’m more “third-world” in my use of time: event-oriented and person-oriented, rather than time-conscious and to-do-list-conscious. I operate with an inner gyroscope tuned to whether or not any particular experience or interaction is complete – not to how long it takes or whether it fits the schedule. I’m attuned to whether or not any particular thought is actually finished thinking, rather than whether the product is done on time. So I tend to take the time it takes to get something right—whether that “something” is the close attentiveness of getting fully engaged in this conversation of consequence, or how to craft this sentence and paragraph, or whether I’m stopping and actually noticing the hawk flying overhead right now.

My way of working—of living—means that I’m not very “efficient” in my use of time because I tend to take the time. I am the world’s worst when it comes to multi-tasking and to checking off to-do list items. It can be a fault for which I must repent; it’s my greatest strength, because I’m fully engaged. I usually forget the clock and the list when I’m working best because I become absorbed in free-form exploration and in qualitative aspects of work-in-progress. We seek to compensate for the shortcomings in my way of operating by getting support from more organized and efficient people who can field incoming requests and help me prioritize.

I admire people who seem able to use every moment productively. But I’ve found that I simply do not work well that way. A certain kind of “wasting time” has proven to be absolutely essential to my fruitfulness. (I’m not recommending my way to others, but simply describing what I’ve learned about how I work. Perhaps some readers also work this way, and can find freedom from trying to live up to an ideal—the so-called “Protestant ethic”—that ill suits how God has made them to function.)

Here’s an example. One time I was bogged down and frustrated on a major article that was already past due. Over previous days and weeks I’d been continually interrupted by other urgent necessities. I took a three day writing retreat, seeking to escape the clutter so that I could work on it undistracted. But I completely “wasted” the first day, taking a long walk, then reading a novel, and making a particularly interesting dinner. I completely “wasted” the second day, taking another long walk, and writing a long poem, and getting to know the director of the retreat center. I didn’t think about my article at all during those long walks or that talking. The novel I read was a good one—full of the rich complexity of people. The poem was as full as I could make it of candor and perception and beauty and faith and sorrow and joy. I pondered trees (the first pale green leaves of spring were showing). I watched and listened long to the flow and sound of a stream. I thought about Jesus and how to express what he means to me. Oh yes, on the third day I wrote the entire article in a white heat. I junked almost all of my earlier outlines and drafts. The article took a direction and a form I could never have imagined.

How should I think about those three days of “work”? Were the first two meandering, unplanned days actually wasted? If mass productivity is the chief end, my mastering goal and purpose, then it was mere squandering. I might have written three articles during those three days, if only I were more disciplined and on task. Or I might have at least read some more prosaic, informational books and other articles that were on topic for what I needed to accomplish. Maybe. Probably not. I think I needed the walks, and the novel, and the poem, and the talking, and a certain kind of wasting time. My article needed the walks, the novel, the poem, the talking: the fallow time. It came out better, clearer, surprising even me with where it went and how it got there. It came out more beautiful, as if fresh air came pouring in through an open window.

Again, I’m not recommending this, and it wouldn’t suit many callings and job descriptions. But I’ve learned that this is how I work and work best. Our dominant cultural ideal is that of the busy, efficient executive who is always on task and getting projects done. But that doesn’t fit the neighborly housewife who takes time for relationships and helping in the need of the moment, or the artist who takes the time for trial and error and experimentation, crafting and recrafting. I operate more like a neighbor and artist than like an executive.

I take comfort in the oddity of Jesus’ example of time management. He was certainly on task, but his way of going about his calling was to wander around and interact with whoever he happened to run into that day. He engaged whatever happened to be going on in those people’s lives right then. He took “little” people just as seriously as “big” people, and gave himself to both. His work life was more like Francis of Assisi than like a life structured around the Blackberry, strategic plan, project list, and meeting schedule. God’s kingdom embraces and uses many kinds of people, and we don’t all operate the same way.

Nope, we certainly don’t! At least I don’t. If I were to “waste” my first two retreat days, I can assure you that they would NOT be followed by a third day of creativity and productivity. My third day would be the same as the first two—wasted. And my retreat would be a total waste of time. But approaches to planning, scheduling, and working are not one-size-fits-all and I am amused by your unique approach, David! You are obviously gifted in ways that I am not. And I think your approach works only for the unusually gifted (and not for ordinary guys like me).

Join me next time for the fourth and final part of my interview with David.
 

At the beginning of the biblical productivity series, I stated that busyness is no sign of diligence, faithfulness, or fruitfulness. And that is because busyness does not indicate that we are devoting ourselves to the most important things. We can become busy with everything under the sun except fulfilling the roles God has assigned for us. And no matter how busy I appear, if I am neglecting one of my primary roles, I am a procrastinator, spinning in unproductive circles.

To this point in the series we have focused on how to identify roles, create goals, and block out our schedule to make sure our time is focused on what is most important.

My preference is to retreat to Starbucks on Monday morning (a day off for me). That’s when two very important things take place: (1) I carefully study the Washington Post sports page. (2) I consider my roles, create goals, and transfer them into my schedule for the coming week.

But no matter how hard we try, it is impossible to plan every detail of our week. Interruptions arise, an unanticipated phone call requires an immediate decision and possible time investment, a new email from a friend requests our help, and a new counseling situation arises that will require the pastor’s immediate attention. The list of possible surprises in our carefully planned weeks is seemingly endless.

So what do we do with the requests we didn’t see coming?

First, it is important to understand our roles, goals, and schedules before we discuss responding to unanticipated requests. Often the procrastinator fails to work from biblical roles to establish his schedule, and is therefore vulnerable to the urgent. So he defaults to the most recent—or easiest—request. He neglects the important tasks and is governed by the urgent and the easy. He is busy, busy, busy, but he is not diligent, faithful, or fruitful.

On the other hand, the one who has been diligent, understands his roles, and has created goals can respond to unanticipated requests with discernment, aware of the time he has available. He can make appropriate scheduling decisions. He has planned for the upcoming week, informed by biblical roles, and can now evaluate requests and everyday surprises wisely.

Each day, both requests and opportunities to serve exceed our capacity and our time. Saying “no” is really a humble response acknowledging our limitations. But if we have not determined in advance who we are to serve, and how we are to serve, we will not be able to say “no” when appropriate.

If you cannot say “no,” you will be governed by the urgent requests of others and distracted from what is most important. Eventually you will become overextended and frustrated.

Evaluating Requests

So how do we evaluate the many requests and opportunities we encounter each day? This is not science, but I personally work from a rough framework when evaluating requests as they arrive. I approach the requests through a workflow that can be divided into three primary questions.

(1) Does the request fit my roles?

First, does this particular request reflect my God-ordained roles? Does it reflect my role as a Christian, or my roles as a husband, father, grandfather, ministry leader, or my commitment to the local church? If so, it automatically moves on to the second question that we will get to in one minute.

But if the request is not consistent with my roles, I ask a further question: Can I complete this in less than two minutes? Sometimes small opportunities to bless others arise but do not fit into our specific roles. If that’s the case, go for it.” If not—if this is a large request that would require a block of time in my schedule and does not fit into my roles—I must decide to delegate, decline, or delete the request (basic David Allen stuff).

(2) Does the request fit my goals?

So the request is consistent with your roles. Good. And in previous posts we have begun considering our goals, which are really sub-priorities within each role.

So does the specific request meet my personal goals? Perhaps not. Or at least not at this time. These requests must go into a folder where they can be prayed about, submitted to the counsel of others, and possibly postponed for later consideration.

If the request is consistent with my roles and goals, then it needs to be done. Time to proceed to the third question.

(3) Can I accomplish the request in under two minutes?

This is a simple question that can help as you put requests on your schedule.

Can the request be accomplished in two minutes or less? If you can complete the request that quickly then it’s really a no-brainer—complete it immediately. There is no reason to wait, no need to schedule a block of time.

But if the request requires more than two minutes of your time, it will require a place in the schedule.

So that is my process for evaluating requests. If we put this entire process together, it may look something like this flow chart:



Conclusion

It’s not possible to schedule all of our lives (nor should we try). And so there is no misunderstanding: I’m not dependent upon my schedule. My dependence rests upon God himself.

The unexpected will arise each day, needs will emerge that we did not anticipate, and situations that we could not foresee will require our attention.

We should not be surprised by apparent interruptions to our schedule. These are part of God’s purpose and plan for our lives. As C.S. Lewis so wisely noted:

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.*

So true.

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* The Quotable Lewis (Wheaton, IL.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1989), 335.

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Want to share a comment or question with C.J.? We invite you to email your suggestions or questions to blog AT sovgracemin DOT org. We cannot promise a personal email response, but we can promise your words will be read and taken into consideration. Thanks for reading! – Tony Reinke

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Biblical Productivity: This post is part of a longer series. Find the complete index of series posts here.

After a short break, today we return to the biblical productivity series.

In the previous post in this series, I explained the personal goals that flow from my most important relationship: my relationship with God. Because that relationship is a priority, my goal is to practice the spiritual disciplines as a way of communing with God and acknowledging my dependence upon him. This goal shows up in my schedule as I protect my morning devotional time.

Today we begin to explore biblical productivity in my relationships with others, particularly in my roles as husband, father, and grandfather.

Serve and Surprise

As I explained earlier, in my relationships with others I work from two biblical categories. Broadly speaking, my goals are twofold:

• Serve (How can I serve?)
• Surprise (How can I surprise?)
  

Obviously, I don’t think these are the only categories you may work from, but thinking in terms of serving and surprising has helped clarify my goals and scheduling week after week over the years.

Connect my roles to my goals and you begin to see the basic framework that informs my schedule. If I were to draw this out, it might look something like this (click for larger):

Studying

I can hear you asking, But C.J., how do I serve and surprise my wife? How do I serve and surprise my son? What exactly am I to do? Give me specifics.

Actually, at this point the most effective way I can serve you is to not give you specifics on how I serve and surprise my wife, son, and grandchildren. Here’s why: Those you are called to serve and surprise are unique. This means the specific ways you serve and surprise your wife may look very different from the ways I serve and surprise my wife.

Study Your Wife

For example, let’s look at my role as husband to Carolyn. As I plan how to serve and surprise my wife, I think about a number of categories. Here are my two lists. You can probably add to them.

Do you know how to surprise and delight your wife in specific ways in each of these areas?

• clothing sizes, styles, and stores
• jewelry
• health
• exercise
• books and magazines
• movies
• the arts
• sports
• food
• music
• entertainment
• places to visit
• intellectual interests
• hobbies
• vacations/getaways
• and, of course, sex
  

Do you know how your wife is faring in each of these areas?

• theological knowledge
• practice of the spiritual disciplines
• growth in godliness
• spiritual gifts that can be used to serve others
• involvement in the local church
• relationships with children
• relationships with parents
• relationships with in-laws
• relationships with friends
• personal retreats
• fears
• hopes
• dreams
• disappointments
• temptations
  

Once I have considered these categories, I can put specific ways to serve and surprise my wife on my weekly and monthly schedule.

Conclusion

It’s relatively easy to consider our roles and create goals. The greater challenge is to deliver on our good intentions by transferring those goals to our schedules.

Serving and surprising others requires that we study them carefully, learn their particular needs and interests, and take action based on what we learn. And when we do, our wives and children, and all those we serve, will freshly experience our affection, care, and service.

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Want to share a comment or question with C.J.? We invite you to email any suggestions or questions to blog AT sovgracemin DOT org. We cannot promise a personal email response, but we can promise your words will be read and taken into consideration. Thanks for reading! – Tony Reinke

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Biblical Productivity: This post is part of a longer series. Find the complete index of posts here.

This series is becoming increasingly practice oriented. As it does, I think it is important to note that my approach is merely a recommendation, one recommendation among so many available today.

It’s not important that you emulate my approach, but you do need some theologically informed approach to time management, a custom-designed approach that incorporates your particular roles and goals into your weekly or monthly schedule.

So let me explain how the specific goals work in relation to each of my five specific roles.

1. My Goals as a Christian

If you are a Christian, you have personally experienced God’s saving act of love. And no other role is more crucial or central than that of “Christian.”

Yet I suspect the role of “Christian” is also the one we’re most likely to assume when we write our schedules. But the relationship with God we’ve been given as a result of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ for our sin should be our highest priority.

I find it useful to identify two specific goals. As a Christian, my goals are:

• Communion with God.
• Participation in the local church. 

Communion with God. It’s possible to view our practice of the spiritual disciplines (study of Scripture, prayer, etc.) as optional additions to our routine when time allows, rather than goals derived from our primary role (Christians). Our communion with God can often remain a vague “should do” in our minds that—if we’re honest with ourselves—often takes less of a priority in our schedules than that important Wednesday lunch meeting with a colleague.

The consequence of neglecting a personal goal is nowhere more serious than when we neglect God and neglect our own souls. Scripture sternly cautions us to enforce all diligence over our hearts: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23, ESV). We must study our hearts. We must monitor the condition of our hearts. We must work by the grace of God to employ the spiritual disciplines to keep our hearts with all vigilance.

And ultimately we must look outward and upward, surveying the wondrous cross and the Savior who died there for us. The Father’s wrath against all our sins has been satisfied. We must never lose sight of Calvary. And the spiritual disciplines help us daily focus our gaze on the Savior.

So we should be careful that this primary role is reflected in our schedules.

In carving out 45–60 minutes of time in the morning, I am seeking to:

• Acknowledge my dependence upon God, affirm my intention to trust in him, and voice skepticism of my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5–6).
• Slowly enter the day, careful to begin with a divine perspective.
• Preach the gospel to myself.
• Get my soul happy before God by meditating on Scripture (a practice I learned from the writings of George Mueller).
  

Participation in the local church. As those who have been forever changed by the gospel, we have the privilege and joy of serving in the local church.

When we consider how to apply this goal to our schedules, we can ask ourselves three simple questions.

Ask yourself:

• When and how am I intentionally serving those around me? this year? this week?
• When and how do I care specifically for those closest to me in the church? this year? this week? (For some of you, this will consist of serving those in your small group.)
• When and how do I pray for and support my pastor? this year? this week?
  

These are questions that flow directly from my goal.

In the coming posts I’ll focus on my personal goals derived from my roles as husband, father, grandfather, and ministry leader.

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Want to share your own personal list of roles and goals with C.J.? We invite you to email your list, and any suggestions or questions, via email (blog AT sovgracemin DOT org). We cannot promise a personal email response, but we can promise your words will be read and taken into consideration. Thanks for reading! – Tony Reinke

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Biblical Productivity: This post is part of a longer series. Find the complete index of series posts here.

Have you ever looked at an empty calendar and asked yourself, “What am I supposed to be doing right now?” Have you looked at a calendar filled to the brim with 25 hours of things to do each day and asked yourself, “What am I supposed to be doing right now?”

By themselves, neither empty schedules nor suffocating schedules help clarify our daily priorities. But identifying our God-ordained roles will. And if you are following along in this blog series, you have hopefully by now developed your own list of God-ordained roles.

More on this in a minute.

Judging from the emails you have sent in, there are at least a few of you who want to make the jump from roles to scheduling. Please don’t jump until you hear me out. Because until we fill in the middle, that often-fuzzy area that connects our roles to our schedules, our calendars will lack purpose and specificity.

So please hang on for one more post before we jump into scheduling.

My Roles

Earlier in this series I listed the five primary roles I currently fill:

1. Christian
2. Husband
3. Father
4. Grandfather
5. Ministry leader
   

This looks like a simple and obvious list—and it is—but it does require a little focused time thinking through and prioritizing these roles. The order is important. So I hope you have invested a few moments to define God’s roles for your life and have the list in front of you.

Please write this list out. We are constantly tempted to read about things we may wholeheartedly agree with (like biblical productivity), yet fail to respond with anything more than a head nodding in agreement. So please take time to list these roles on paper.

The 15 minutes you devote to clarifying your roles will quickly repay itself in hours of time-saving clarity and purpose as you determine your goals and finalize your schedule.

My Goals

Okay, now onto my goals. For me, I work from two general categories that work well with most of my roles (especially my relationships with other people). Broadly speaking, my goals are twofold:

• Serve (How can I serve others?)
• Surprise (How can I surprise others?)

Obviously, I don’t think these are the only categories you may work from, but thinking in terms of serving and surprising has helped clarify my goals and scheduling week after week over the years.

Serve and What?

I think most of us understand the priority Scripture places on serving the needs of others. I don’t think I need to convince you of its importance.

But what about surprising others? What’s up with that?

Granted, surprising others is not always distinct from serving them. But while we often think of serving as limited to meeting obvious needs, there is more to it than that. Paul writes, “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10, ESV). The intentionality and the intensity of this statement are hard to miss. God commands a holy competition in showing honor to others.

So do our schedules reflect obedience to this command?

Convicting, isn’t it?  

As you can see, I find it helpful to think of these goals—serving and surprising—as separate categories. Roughly speaking, to serve is to effectively provide for legitimate needs. To surprise is to happily and generously honor and bless others!

Both categories should be the effect of the gospel in our hearts and the appropriate expression of love for others. And both categories honor God, and both categories should find their way into our schedules.

Limiting Goals

Now please don’t be running off and setting hundreds of goals in relation to each role! I have too often set too many goals that went unfulfilled and left me discouraged. I recommend just a few goals for any single role. I create no more than three goals per role in a given week.

While we could no doubt develop a long list of goals under each role, our time, energy, and gifts are restricted. Four or more goals are likely more than many of us can handle, and especially if you can identify more than three personal roles.

Please don’t misunderstand. My approach is merely a recommendation for your consideration. There is no need to follow my approach. But you do need to custom-design some approach that incorporates roles and goals into your schedule.

That’s for next time.

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Want to share a comment with C.J.? We invite you to email your suggestions and questions to blog AT sovgracemin DOT org. We cannot promise a personal email response, but we can promise your words will be read and taken into consideration. Thanks for reading! – Tony Reinke

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Biblical Productivity: This post is part of a longer series. Find the complete index of series posts here.

 

 

Currently Amazon.com lists 90,864 books under the topic of “time management.” Titles range from Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen, a helpful book I recommend, to Time Management for Dummies, a book I have not read, although it appears I represent the target audience.

“Time management” books are hot and it’s obvious why—we all want to discover some previously unknown secret that will enable us to become more productive. Yet in this series we have discovered that getting more things done does not mean we are getting the right things done.

Or to put this in a little triad: busyness does not mean I am diligent; busyness does not mean I am faithful; busyness does not mean I am fruitful.

In the past several posts in this series, we looked at procrastination: putting off until the last moment tasks that are important (and presumably most difficult), and instead devoting ourselves to what is easy and urgent, but not as important.

My busyness may be procrastination in disguise.

But today we transition in this series from discussing the hindrances to biblical productivity (procrastination, laziness, and the tendencies of the sluggard) to looking at how we can effectively plan and prioritize.

From my study of this topic and my observation of those I admire (and desire to emulate), it appears to me that being faithful, productive, and fruitful for the glory of God requires that I accomplish three things:

1. define my present God-given roles,
2. determine specific, theologically informed goals, and
3. transfer these goals into my schedule.

Over the next several posts we will develop these three in some detail.

But you may be thinking to yourself, why go through the trouble of determining these roles, creating goals, and fitting all this into my schedule? Why not take life as it comes?

Perhaps you dislike—or even despise—all things related to planning. Perhaps you, like me, can identify with my friend Michael McKinley when he recently wrote: “I would rather stick a fork in my eye than sit in a planning meeting.” Mike has painfully and creatively captured my tendency to postpone planning, and if possible, avoid planning altogether. But while I think of myself as an all-about-the-moment guy, my avoidance of planning is to the detriment of my schedule and (more importantly) to the detriment of my service to my family and church.

Here’s why.

The problem for those of us with this fork-in-the-eye approach to planning is that during each day the most urgent requests will compete with and distract from the most important goals and priorities of our lives. Each day the number of requests we receive normally outnumber the time allotted for the day. My experience confirms that if I fail to attack my week with theologically informed planning, my week attacks me with an onslaught of the urgent. And I end up devoting more time to the urgent than the important.

And at the end of the week there is a low-grade guilt and dissatisfaction in my soul, because I’ve neglected to do the truly important stuff. I want to have as few weeks like this as possible in whatever time remains for me to serve the Savior. I’m thinking you do as well.

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My tendency is to charge into the day intent on getting stuff done, attacking my to-do list motivated by self sufficiency rather than by humble dependence upon the grace of God revealed in the gospel.

And given the active presence of pride and self-sufficiency in my life, it is imperative for me at the outset of each day to devote time to humbling myself before the Lord and acknowledging my dependence upon him for all that awaits me.

As I devote myself to this spiritual discipline, the words of Proverbs 3:5–7 frequently inform my meditation and prayer:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. (ESV)

Alongside my open Bible, I find the exposition of these verses by nineteenth-century pastor Charles Bridges in his commentary on Proverbs to be helpful and insightful. He writes:

Let our confidence be uniform. In all thy ways acknowledge him (Proverbs 3:6). Take one step at a time, every step under divine warrant and direction. Ever plan for yourself in simple dependence on God. It is nothing less than self-idolatry to conceive that we can carry on even the ordinary matters of the day without his counsel.

He loves to be consulted. Therefore take all thy difficulties to be resolved by him. Be in the habit of going to him in the first place—before self-will, self-pleasing, self-wisdom, human friends, convenience, expediency. Before any of these have been consulted go to God at once. Consider no circumstances too clear to need his direction.

In all thy ways, small as well as great; in all thy concerns, personal or relative, temporal or eternal, let him be supreme.
 
-Charles Bridges (1794–1869), from A Commentary on Proverbs (Banner of Truth, 1846/1968) pp. 24–25.

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Related posts in this series:

1. Are You Busy?
2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator
3. The Procrastinator Within
4. Just Do It

I tend to procrastinate. So to fight that tendency, I’ve posted the following quote from a nineteenth-century preacher under my computer monitor. I hope these words inspire you to attend diligently to the most important matters each day, by God’s grace.

It reads:

No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it.

-Alexander MacLaren (1826–1910), Scottish preacher

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Related posts in this series:

1. Are You Busy?
2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator
3. The Procrastinator Within