How to find peace when your to-do list is overwhelming
How is your monthly time-out going? Have you tried imagining your plans coming to pass? Have you made declarations over your dreams?Maybe you are wondering when I am going to start talking about planning and execution.I feel your pain.I spend hour upon hour in a place that the world would call inaction. Some might call it passivity, to sit in a chair and imagine things and declare them into being.But don't listen to the frantic, hurried, busy voice that is telling you to go out and do quite yet. There is one more powerful step that can only be done in the secret place that is crucial to seeing the realization of the God-sized goal that you have made.Ask God for help.This one seems so obvious, and you are most likely already doing this to a certain extent.But I am encouraging you to do this as a habit, once per month, with all of your goals/plans. Conduct a systematic examination of all of your goals and specifically ask God for help.This is a powerful discipline.If you were to pull all of your goals out right now, a certain feeling would probably emerge: concern. Concern is a powerful feeling, and living inside of concern are myriads of questions, unresolved issues, and challenges.Many of us are driven by concern as we go about accomplishing our goals and plans.
But you were not meant to execute your plans from a posture of concern. You were meant to execute your plans from a place of peace.Peace brings clarity of decision-making, increases your discernment, and gives you the ability to move forward with confidence.The next part of your monthly time-out is where you plan and create action steps for the month. But I don't want you to do that from a place of concern. I want most of all that you are in a place of peace.But there is only one road from concern to peace. It is the road of asking God for help. Philippians 4:4-9 talks about how to move from a place of concern to peace. First, thank God for what He has already done. Then petition, i.e. ask God for help.Pull out all of your goals and plans, look over them, and do the following:
- Thank God for what was accomplished in each goal for the last month.
- Write down every concern that comes to mind.
- Ask God for help in those areas of concern. Ask Him to help you. Ask Him to help the other people who are involved in the completion of the project. Ask God to do things that you could never do.
As you do this, you will come to a place of peace. And from that place of peace, your planning will be significantly more effective than if you had done it from a place of concern.