I've been wrestling with some big stuff lately. Last night, someone said something to me that caught me off guard, made me feel a little uncomfortable and ashamed, and certainly gave me something to think about. Here's what happened:
I was at a dinner party with some friends and a senior pastor (Pastor Wayne) from our church. We were talking about work and I said things have been a little crazy lately doing my regular job and so much work on the 12 days of Christmas "for the church". To which he replied, "you mean for Jesus, right?" He stopped me right in my tracks. "Of course... you know what I mean", is what I remember replying, but honestly my head started spinning at that point and it's all I've thought about since then.
I've been going and going and going lately. Work meetings, YMCA meetings, church meetings, sending dozens and dozens of emails each week for the "12 Days of Christmas", feeling like I'm falling behind in YMCA commitments, and trying to squeeze in time with Matt, our families, and our friends. There are days when I look a week ahead in my calendar and can only find a couple of hours of unscheduled time. Individually speaking I am committed and looking forward to each of my activities, but collectively it gets overwhelming and so sometimes I end up dreading things instead of enjoying them. (I can't believe I just put that in writing.) And then someone comes along and says to me "You mean for Jesus, right?" and all of sudden my world looks completely different. Now as I'm thinking about the things on my to-do list, I'm thinking "This is for Jesus, right?". If what I'm doing is for Jesus, then I should be doing it to my best abililty, full of joy, with a servant's heart, feeling good about doing it for the right reasons. If it's for Jesus and my attitude isn't quite in line with what I just described, then I should probably check myself. But, if what I'm doing is NOT for Jesus, then I need to examine my motives. Am I doing it just to please others? Or for approval? Or to meet what I think others' expectations of me are? I fall into those traps all the time.
I plan to start making a lot of decisions based on "You mean for Jesus, right?". I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
