Interruptions are not Efficient {A Sad Confession}

Well, Happy Spring.  Every season is my favorite when it starts…..  Texas is a little tricky though.  The starts are short— or long— depending on which one it is.  Spring is probably the most bi-polar if we can attach that label to a season.  It plays hide and seek starting somewhere in late January then summer interrupts the game and lasts until, oh, about Thanksgiving.  Today it will be around 80 and tomorrow the high is 45.  Hide and seek.

I taught my last lesson of Bible study last night for the year and there is a relief and a sadness that always comes.  Relief that the work of studying is over and a sadness that the work of studying is over.  I have college  to thank for revealing the study geek in me.  I had to study in high school to get the grades but by college and certainly by pharmacy school, I discovered I really enjoyed it.  Going into full geek mode at the Science Library at UGA was my happy place.  People knew where to find me and when I didn’t want to be found, I would hide.  Sometimes it worked and typically the tenacious seekers were a welcome break— especially the ones who brought me cheese on wheat crackers from the vending machine downstairs.  I got a certain energy from learning in college as I do now but honestly, it helps to have something to push me— something to work towards. I won’t have the deadlines of teaching to push me these next few months.

Studying to teach is a reflection of one kind but I miss reflecting on other areas in my life— which I tend to shoo away when I have a deadline coming up, a mind consuming list in front of me or I just don’t care to reflect on the thick atmosphere we sometimes have here in our home with teenagers trying to figure out life and parents trying to figure out teenagers. Deadlines and to do lists seem to rob my body of any possible light-heartedness.  My family loves this about me as you can well imagine.  I wrestle with it almost every day and most of the time, unfortunately, some poor soul that lives here has to point it out to me before I realize I am plowing ahead with my head down getting it done, daring anyone to interrupt me because what I am doing is paramount.  And poor, POOR soul if they choose to reveal this about me when I am hungry, behind or in my own little world- and their presence startles me.  I know you can relate, so I won’t belabor this.  But no matter my task, 100% of the time the person is right. Thumbs down—because I like to be the one that’s right 100% of the time.  Life just goes better for me that way.  But alas….. not going to happen… so.  I RARELY welcome an interruption.  I find it interesting how in all my 2018 pride, I think life is so much more complicated and hectic and distracting than any generation before me and then I come across this heart poking paragraph written close to 150 years ago!

“I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one’s work.  Then one can feel that perhaps one’s work— ones’ work for God- consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one’s day.  It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day— the part one can best offer to God.  After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime , and keep a quiet heart about it.”

Thus, Elisabeth Elliot’s classic book Keep a Quiet Heart was penned.  And even she is quoting Annie Keary who lived from 1825-1879.  Seriously?  Yes.  Seriously.  And I bet Annie could outwork all of us put together.…  with a gracious smile and hands folded in front of her apron.   I wiki’d her for about 2 minutes and I promise you, she knows all about “interruptions and hindrances”.  More than we can imagine.  I, in 2018, am not all that special…. to think that things have just ramped up for me.  My struggle is a very old struggle.  And reading it here from, like 1850, puts my “struggle” in perspective for me.

I rewrote her statement in my talk— It’s beneficial to look at any interruption and hindrance to my day’s agenda as challenges sent by God to remind me not to hold on to my own agenda too tightly.  Then if something seemingly insignificant pops up in my day, I can consider it exactly what the Lord had planned for me that moment, the most important thing to which I could give myself.  Trust God to give me the time to finish any work that needs to be done.

To see a “trifling haphazard thing” as the “most important part of the work day— the part one can best offer to God” does NOT come naturally for me.  And that’s an understatement.  I barely have a category for that kind of thinking but I DO HAVE ONE, it just usually stays empty. Until the “poor soul” points it out.  I am truly trying to have that mindset. To see my agenda as optional and to look out for more important things that do pop up in my day and to choose “no” to my “work [I] have planned out”.  AND KEEP A QUIET HEART ABOUT IT.
Which I read to say— don’t whine about it.  If I give myself to the “interruption” aka “the most important part of the work of the day”, I am not to whine about all I didn’t accomplish on my mighty list.

It’s so embarrassing but this is what I do…. I feel interrupted and aggravated then if I do give in then I am frustrated at my lack of productivity   WHY DO I DO THIS? How long have I known this?  Too long but as they say, not long enough, apparently.

A good friend gave me the book by Alan Fadling,  The Idol of Efficiency  She has to be a good friend to know I needed to read this book and I am grateful to my core she had the courage to give it to me. Here are some of my take aways after reading the book:

In what ways does my hurry {my efficiency} harm others instead of helping them?

I surely don’t want to be known as unlovingly efficient— getting much done but with no love.

Relationships are messy but not very efficient.

I don’t want to be efficient in managing tasks but unloving in the process.

What if I had to lower my personal standards of productivity in order to be more loving and more available?

Be willing to become a less job efficient and a more open to interruptions {new opportunities to love}.

Ouch, ouch and ouch.  Does anyone feel it like I do?  These are just great reminders and I do refer to them often—praying all the while the Spirit who is alive and work within me will remind me of simple Truths that, if I choose to obey, will keep my paths straight. No, I don’t always understand His ways— His interruptions or hindrances- to what I think is best, but that is where He calls me to trust in Him with all my heart.  My understanding is limited and flawed. {Proverbs 3:4-6} An openness and lighthearted attitude regarding my tasks would be a welcome gift to my family.
Lord, truly. help me.