What Happens When…:
We’ve all been there. Analyzing the results of something we thought was perhaps good, and not seeing the results we hoped for. It’s like writing my blog. I think fast, write fast, and if I do not slow down and read, edit, and re-read/edit, time and again, then the result is sloppy.
It may be an age thing.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been slipping some “tractor” work into my day! Fun Time! Only, the chore of mounting brackets and implements that you touch once a year keeps me going back to the store for a missing part (I’m not sure what I did with it!), and turning to the inadequate “how to” manuals of attaching and detaching. Sure. I’ve found a forum where I can ask questions, but if you do this “tractor” work all day long then it’s simple. Right? Well, I read one sentence in one of the manuals that made a ton of sense…
“Take it slow, and do it right.”
So, a quick attachment replacement that takes the pro’s 10 minutes, becomes an hour long slow process…or even several days. I’m not mechanically inclined but I want to work my tractor like I know what I’m doing. So I must become so inclined.
What happens when you decide you want to do something and have no idea how to make it happen. Through the years I have simply thrown myself at the subject and keep working it until I have it figured out. Computers. Programming. Piloting. Traveling. There are no blockades that keep me away from doing what I want to do, except for time, money, more time, and more money! Thus, the real problem is not ability or interest, it’s finding the time and the money.
But then you have to answer the question like this: “What happens when I age?” I do know my body is no longer able to work hours on end and then sleep like a baby all night. The past few days of tractor prep has kept me sore and incapable of sleeping all night. There are too many answers to the options that are available to fix this problem, yet, time and money may be part of the answer.
Or, the real answer may mean, you must change your focus.
There are more things I want to accomplish than what I have time and money to do. Narrowing my focus on what is important means I put those other interest on a proverbial back burner, or I must bury them into a part of my past so that it will never rise to the surface. Until I have more time, and money, of course!
For the next few months I’m focusing on rearranging my focus.
- What’s important? Plan for it’s high success. What’s necessary? Keep it at the top of your priority list.
- Who and what do you need to make it successful? Pull those solutions closer, and push away all the distractions.
- When do I do it? Only after it’s scheduled out with a high degree of successful completion.
- Where do I do it? At the most proper place for success.
- Why do I do it? Because it’s my calling and focus.
- How do I do it? With strong focus, willing heart, timely solutions.
Hmmm…. Sort of sounds like my post from a few days ago is still rattling around in my vocabulary cage! [Source]
Jesus applied some of this same kind of logic to the multitudes that followed him. If you want to be my disciple, he said, then there are things you must do.
Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.“ (Luke 14:25-33 NKJV)
In other words, take an accounting, know what you are aiming for, count the cost of the future results, and then strive to make it happen. Back then, with no computers, hefty supply of pen, paper, or bank statements, they were encouraged to know what the cost of their future entailed. And then make decisions based on their analysis.
What happens when you do not plan well? Jesus says all will mock you as a person who can not finish what he set out to do.
Here’s my thought: What have you planned to do at various points of your life, and you either failed to complete, or lost focus of the finish line. (Hmmm… Eye on the Prize!] Talking with my neighbor yesterday, I told him I’m working on completing a fence that I started planning on several years ago. I know the design, and I’ve calculated the cost, now I’ve got to clear out the underbrush so I will Know my Boundary.
In the middle of it all, life will challenge you with distractions. Some are necessary (health, finances, family, etc.), and some will come out of left field, as in, “where did that come from”? When these things happen, be like that sentence in my tractor implement manual:
“Take it slow, and do it right.”