Running Hard

Well, we're into the year, and I'm behind already. I've fallen short of some of my goals and will need the weekend to play catch up.

Is it because I over-extended my plans, or because I still haven't mastered the inclination to procrastinate?

To my horror, I believe it's probably the latter. But this time I had a good excuse -- excuse, not reason. I took some time off to read The Shack by Wm. Paul Young.

I found it a fascinating explanation of the way one moves from tragedy to acceptance to forgiveness. I've been there and know first hand.

None of the book was new to me. I'd lived most of its contents except my loss was not a daughter, but grandchildren. And the murderer was not a stranger but a beloved member of the family.

But this isn't about our tragedies. It's about the nature of God. Except, we have a huge problem in understanding the nature of God. We are finite; He is infinite. We will never be able to wrap our finite minds all the way around the wonder and awesomeness of our infinite God.

I love the personification of Sarayu.

In 1997 I wrote the following:

Paraclete:
You who draw near,
You who walk beside,
Come to comfort,
Come to strengthen,
Come to shine the Light of the
Word on the Darkness of my heart.
Help me to align with you, Oh Holy Spirit.
Help me to bring my thoughts
Captive to the will of Christ,
Captive to the Word of God,
Captive to obedience,
Instantaneous and unquestioning,
To Your promptings.
Help me to study to show myself approved,
Unashamed to sit in the Council of your saints.
Help me to see the will of the Father in everyday situations.
Help me to respond in love to the Lord.
Help me to respond with Love to all His hurting creation.
Keep me dead-on, sighted with tunnel vision,
Single-minded on the goal of
Total obedience as a channel of His love.

New Beginnings

We are now four days into 2009. We've had time to make our New Years Resolutions -- and break them at least once.

So where do we go from here? Perhaps it's not so much time for resolutions as for goal setting and plan making. I have a couple of large want to do's on my list for this year. But they've been on my list for several years now, and I'm not much closer to getting them accomplished than I was last year and the year before that.

To begin with, I need to set some priorities. My Garment of Praise blog is a daily priority now. I've had a couple of blogs that died a-borning in years past. I am determined that will not happen to either of these two blogs.

The goal for this blog is to post at least once a week - or better yet, twice. But once a week is minimum.

Then there are two larger writing works in progress. In order to focus on one at a time, I've decided to put the non-fiction book as priority A. This means that I must complete at least one chapter every 10 days. At this rate, I will have completed 12 chapter drafts by day 124 of this year or May 4, 2009.

By making my goals measurable and specific, I intend to hold myself accountable to complete them.