I love being a pastor and I love pastors. Pastors have a high calling which demands hard work and good work habits. God calls pastors and all Christians to be found faithful as we serve Him effectively.
Unfortunately, most of what I have learned about working and being efficient and effective have come from being inefficient and ineffective!
One important way to overcome ineffectiveness is by not succumbing to “The Tyranny of the Urgent.”
I first became aware of that phrase in the early 1970’s when I read a booklet by that name written by Charles Hummel. It is a wonderful essay (written in 1967) that will help you navigate the constant tension between the urgent and the important.
Hummel’s thesis was that most problems that are urgent aren’t important and most concerns that are important aren’t urgent. Because important things aren’t urgent (think about the needs of a family member for your time and affection), they get put on the back burner for things that are urgent but don’t really matter.
Christians constantly struggle with determining what really matters. Instead of dealing with ideas and events which will last for eternity, we deal with the merely urgent.
We go through life greasing squeaky wheels and responding to urgent calls and demands, laying aside those things which have eternal consequences. Because we don’t determine priorities and schedule time to do important things, we simply get pulled from one urgent problem to the next.
When I am lost in an automobile, I have the tendency to speed up. Somehow my mind assumes that I need to go faster–even if I am going faster in the wrong direction. That’s what dealing with the urgent does, it moves us faster and faster in the wrong direction.
How do we escape from the tyranny of urgent things?
Charles Hummel encouraged followers of Christ to set priorities after prayerfully waiting on God’s instruction. In other words, let God (through His Word and through listening to the Holy Spirit) show us what really matters and what is really important.
As we open our hearts to God and meditate on scripture, we get a feel for the truly important, those things that aren’t urgent by the world’s standards but which are the most important.
I want to encourage you to start your day with God. Get to know Him as He is and let Him show you what really matters.
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5 Responses
What a daily struggle this is for me! I find myself often times rushing through my quiet time to get to urgent matters which at the time seem important but in reality( spiritual reality that is) are not. I have started to ask myself how an urgent matter would be handled if I was unavailable. In 99% of cases I really am not needed.
We all struggle with these issues.
It is a microwave generation. Yet we some how never realize that things cooked on a stove top almost always taste better than 4 minutes in a microwave.
I agree.
This seems like a good follow up on my comment from yesterday regarding: Do I have to do this now, can’t it wait (till) later?
Most likely all of your readers have heard the phrase: Chose your battles.
I was impressed by the reading, praying and observation of “Christians” this fact: The Battle is all around each of us, within and without our corpus. Every battle is important; it sets the stage for either an advance against the enemy or a retreat. Another lesson learned (and also heard several times from your pulpit) is one should not be alone facing any battle. Society looks at votes. We live in a numbers game. For God’s own reason he created an accountability mechanism for life this side of eternity. He called it Christ’s Bride. You know the Greek word, we call Church is more that just a community or earthly fellowship of people. One can find examples throughout the Old Testament and it is spelled out by Christ in the Gospel of John and in the Apostle Paul’s letters quite clearly. Social engineering is no stranger to evil and knows the important is most often put off by well meaning but busy people desiring to do good.
Perhaps my expectations are as irrational as they have been characterized in the past. Or perhaps those expectations define whose camp the one making the characterization dwells. As I stated many years ago in a poem regarding direction in life: “…the one God wants the most. It’s too late when you’re a ghost.” Now is the time given to all air breathers to bring God His due Glory.
I am thankful for what has been accomplished in your ministry to both call attention to the need for God (in Christ Jesus) in people’s lives, the need to live it with integrity, the need to reach beyond the walls, the challenge to put on the Whole Armor of God and Stand in the face of evil. May we stand together. Not for a building, not for a social group, not even for a denomination, may we stand for the Glory on God the Joy of Heaven, the Cause of Christ: His Victory in Christ Jesus, His Bride here on earth. Such has been the development of Honoring Life as portrayed in the History of the development of the United States of America, as each can find some object to facilitate the telling their own story about God’s faithfulness. One can find it at the Jefferson Parish Museum, for now. This place has never charged admission, has never asked for money and is not asking now. It has been a gift to God’s People since 1970. Important? “How shall they know unless a preacher tell them?”
Blessings