Priorities

I have a lot on my plate. I have a great wife, two incredible kids, lots of friends, a good church, and fun job, along with a body to get into better shape, a growing garden to tend, etc...

I was thinking about it all while driving home from some appointments I had for work last week. My job isn't terribly difficult, it involves getting churches to stop doing some things and start doing others, okay that's a little over simplified, but it's not rocket science. It does, however, require a fair amount of time away from family, and it hits occasional spots where I'm gone more than I'm home, I've recently come out of one such period.

At the same time, I have a new baby, five months old this Sunday, and a three year old with all the zeal and energy I could hope to muster packed into a 40 pound body that is a perpetual whirl of motion during daylight hours. And a wife, a beautiful, smart, and occasionally sassy wife, whose sassiness seems to grow in direct proportion to my time away.

I also have been working to help a local church plant with several projects and have found myself much more intimately involved than originally intended, working on their SERVOLUTION events this Summer, and speaking (poorly) on a Sunday morning last month.

So with all that, it's easy for some very important things to fall by the wayside...to minimize this, I try to spend at least a few minutes every morning focusing on what's important, from general ideas to specific tasks that will make that one day a success.

The things that help make everything else fall into place a little easier for me are pretty simple... If I have done these three things before 9 a.m. then I have a pretty good chance of it being a great day. Those three are... Spend a few minutes with my three year old who is the only other one up before 8, Workout for at least 30 minutes, started P90x this week...OUCH, and read a few chapters of the bible and maybe another book in addition. If I have done those things, time with son, time on body, and time in the word, everything else can happen much more smoothly.

What are the Big Rocks in your life that make everything else easier once you've moved em?