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Clarify My Values, Outline My Shape, Surrender to God’s Mission, Prayerfully Mapping out my Cosmic Mission Statement and today
Organize my time around my SHAPE and Life Mission
Someone sent me this Calvin cartoon a while back. It says “God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.”
How many have ever felt like that?
Time is our most precious commodity. It’s far more important than money. You can always get more money but you only have a certain amount of time allotted in your life.
o When you waste time you are essentially wasting your life. Because your time is your life
o When you’re killing time, you’re killing yourself
Last week we talked about how to write out a Life Mission Statement. We talked about writing out what your basic direction of life is based on what you believe is God’s will for you. That’s great.
But you could have the most eloquent Life Mission Statement and if you don’t know how to translate it into your schedule, into your time, it’s just going to be a dusty document. It won’t be worth much at all. It’s just a little thing you did and then put on the shelf and forget about it until you actually apply it to your daily life.
So we come to Step 5 of Mission Shaped Living.
Ephesians 5:15-16 (Phillips translation) “Live life with a due sense of responsibility, not as those who do not know the meaning of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time.”
God has a lot to say about time management but how do you do this? How do you make the best use of your time? By organizing it around your life mission.
There are a lot of good time management books and tapes and seminars; I’ve read many of those books, listened to the tapes and attended the seminars. But mission guided time management has a distinct difference than all the other time management books and seminars and tapes you’ve listened to.
I’ll be real honest with you up front: I’m not interested in teaching you how to get more done. I want to teach you how to do less. Less not more. Most of you are already doing too much. So instead of doing more, I want to teach you to do less of what you don’t need to do. And how to do more of what God shaped you to do and what God put you on this earth to do.
There are three simple parts to Mission Shaped Time Management.
1. I need to devise my goals around my MISSION
Take your life mission statements and break it down into specific targets. I told you a couple of weeks ago, you must define your roles before you set your goals. A lot of people set goals and you can have all kinds of goals in your life and still not know “Why am I here on earth?” You can have all kinds of goals. But purpose driven living means you look at your life mission and base all your goals on what that is.
Paul was a mission guided goal setter.
1 Corinthians 9:26 “I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step.”
Why should I set goals for my life? Because it pleases God. When you set goals it pleases God. Why? Because goals are statements of faith.
Goals are simply statements that say, “I believe God wants me to accomplish `this' by such and such a date. I believe this is what God wants me to do with my life.” It is a statement of faith. Here’s where I’m headed. The Bible says …
Hebrews 11:1 “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
If you’re not setting any goals, you’re not taking any risks. If you’re not taking any risks you don’t need any faith. If you don’t have any faith you’re not pleasing God.
Here’s the difference between what I want to talk about this morning and what the world says. If you go to a typical time management seminar they will say set goals and set them in any area you please. Have you ever heard that? Whatever the mind can conceive, the will can achieve.” It’s not true. How about, I conceive of myself of singing like Kamahl. I can conceive that all I want to but I’m never going to sing like Kamahl no matter how much I can conceive it. Because I’m not shaped like Kamahl. Obviously! So you can’t just set goals in any area of life and achieve them. That’s baloney. It doesn’t make sense. You cannot achieve everything you want in life.
You can achieve everything God put you on this earth to achieve in life. He shaped you and made you for a mission.
The world says, Set any goal you want and go after it. God says, Base your goals on My purpose for your life.
2 Corinthians 10:13 (Living Bible) “Our goal is to measure up to God’s plan for us.”
Most books on time management and goal setting ignore the two most important facts in your life: 1) God has four guiding purposes for your life, and 2) You are uniquely shaped.
If you don’t take those two things into consideration and you set a bunch of goals and achieve them, you’ll still be unfulfilled.
In the position I’m in, I have a lot of chances to talk to a lot of very successful people, many of whom have achieved incredible goals. They finished the goals and then, Now what? Goals that aren’t built around God’s mission for your life ultimately do not lead to satisfaction and fulfilment. I did that, now there’s got to be more. Because there’s a little internal mechanism in you that says you’re made for this and when you achieve it you’re going to know why you’re here.
I devise my goals around my mission. Last week, remember, we said there are four purposes God has for every individual.
1. God wants me to get to know Him and to love Him (Centre)
2. God made you to become like Jesus (Character)
3. He made you to make a contribution to the world (Contribution)
4. He’s given you a unique life message (Communication)
Goals are where the rubber meets the road. They put wings to your mission statement. And if you don’t set goals based around your mission and these 4 questions, you just have a little dusty document.
That’s the first step. Once you’ve set some goals based on your mission then you start fulfilling your activities around those goals.
2. I Need to ORGANIZE MY cosmic mission AROUND RELATIONSHIPS
I’m going to explain why the Bible teaches this but first let me ask you, how many of you have ever made or used a To Do List?
We’ve all done this. You make a To Do List then you start to try to accomplish all the things on the list. There’s one problem with a Things To Do list. That is, the things on that list are not of equal value – Marriages – Wives…
For instance, say John Howard has a To Do List. 1) Pick up some milk on the way home for; 2) Speak to George Bush about the Iraqi Conflict; 3) Speak to Nation; 4) Mow the holiday house lawn! 5) Reshape the Constitution! The point is they are of unequal value.
I’m going to be your counsellor this morning. I know what human nature is like. Most of us organize your life not around relationships but around the urgent and the unfinished.
Almost all of your life is spent on doing the things I’ve got to do because I knew I should have done them two months ago and today’s the deadline so I have to get them done today. So we run around, as I say, putting out fires.
Have you noticed that the urgent is not always important; it’s just urgent? They are two different things.
The problem is with human nature we usually do the least important things first because they’re the easiest. And we like the satisfaction of – I crossed six things off my list.
“I cleaned out my paper clip drawer. The taxes are still not done yet but …” That is human nature.
I want to suggest to you that you need to organize your activities not around the urgent or the unfinished but around relationships.
Ecclesiastes 8:6 (GNB) “There’s a right time and a right way to do everything but we know so little.”
That verse is saying your problem isn’t a lack of time, it’s we don’t know how to manage it. There’s a right time and right way to do everything. God would not give you more to do than He gives you time to do it.
So if you’re doing something and you say, “I don’t have enough time,” that means
(a) You’ve got some things on that list that aren’t God’s will for you, because God would never give you more to do than He gives you time to do it, or
(b) You’re doing it in the wrong way. There’s a right way and wrong way to do everything.
We all have the same amount of time each week – 168 hours. Everybody in this room has the same amount of hours – 168 hours a week.
In that week, the difference between those who really make their lives count and those who don’t is management. We all have the same amount of time, it’s just the way you use it.
God has a lot to say about planning in the Bible. God is a planner. God planned the creation of the world. God planned you. He planned your life. God is a planner. In fact, when you plan you’re being godly. You’re being like God.
Proverbs 17:24 (GNB) “An intelligent person aims at wise action, but a fool starts off in many directions.”
Yes, in fact Jesus said that, “Don’t take any thought for tomorrow.” But He wasn’t talking about planning. He was talking about worrying. He wasn’t saying don’t plan for tomorrow. He was saying, Don’t worry about tomorrow. In fact, plan more and you’ll worry less. The reason you worry so much is because you don’t plan enough. He’s not saying don’t plan for tomorrow because God plans.
Proverbs 16:9 (Living Bible) “We should make plans counting on God to direct us.”
So what we do is we organize our lives around relationships, we make some plans, counting on God to direct us. Most people tend to be activity driven rather than mission driven. Because we don’t set goals based on our purpose and we don’t organize our activities based on our relationships. When we do that, when we become activity driven, we head off in many different directions and the important things of our lives get lost.
The point is this; your life mission is not done in a vacuum. It’s done in relationship to other people. There will never be a time in your life when everything is particularly organized just the way you want it and you can get up in the morning and do everything you want to do and get it done in no relationship with anybody else. There will always be interruptions. There will always be problems. There will always be responsibilities that you have.
But there is a way to organize it. I suggest and I believe the Bible teaches that the best way to organize your life is to build it around relationships. Specifically five relationships…
Relationships are far more important than accomplishments in God’s book. So you need to look at the different relationships you have.
Pentathlon – 5 disciplines… Shooting (Air Pistol), Fencing, Swimming (200m Freestyle), Riding (15 jumps over 350 t 450 metre course) & Running -
Five basic relationships. What you need to do is not only set goals based on your purposes but organize your activities around your relationships.
Your relationship to yourself…
1. MY Personal Life
That’s your personal development as a child of God.
Luke 2:52 “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature in favour with God and man.”
You need to plan time for personal development.
2. My Family
1 Timothy 5:8 “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith.”
3. My church family
Ephesians 2:18 (TEV) “You belong in God’s household with every other Christian.”
You cannot become all God wants you to be unless you get tied into and committed to a local church.
You need a small group, who know you, who can hold you accountable and support you when you go through those crises and tough times of life. This needs to be in your schedule.
4. My work or Ministry Teams
Titus 3:14 (Phillips) “Learn to earn what you need by honest work and so be self-supporting.”
5. My world &/or my community
Romans 14:7 “For none of us lives to himself alone.”
We’re part of a larger community. You’re not just a church member and you’re not just a family member and you’re not just a person. Some of you are a spouse because you’re married, and some of you are a parent, and then you’re a professional, but you’re also a citizen.
What do you call a person who is successful in one of the areas but a failure in the others?
Let’s say you are a success at work and you make a lot of money, but you lose your health or you lose your family and you make no contribution to your church family and you make no contribution back to the community, what does God call that kind of person? A wasted life. A failure. Because in the pentathlon you’re not judged on one event. And you can’t get to heaven one day and say, “But I made a lot of money.” God’s going to say, “What about the other areas?”
The key is balance.
Think of your life as a tree. The roots of the tree are God’s four purposes for your life – put Him at the centre, have the character of Christ, make a contribution, communicate your life message. Then your life mission is the trunk based on your SHAPE. The branches are the five key areas of your life we’ve just talked about. The twigs are your purpose driven goals in each of those areas – goals at work, goals in the family, goals at church, goals in your personal life. And the leaves are the tasks and activities to help you reach your goals.
1. I need to devise my goals around my Mission, I need to Organise my activities around Relationships…
The final step to having a life that is prioritised a Cosmic Mission
3. I need harmonize my schedule around my COSMIC mISSION AND IT’S values
This means if something is really important to me, I need to put it on the calendar. “Harmonize” means “to bring into agreement”.
The problem is we say all the time, “This is important to me,” but we don’t ever schedule any time for it. If you don’t schedule it, it’s not going to get done. We tend to give priority to scheduled items.
Goals must be translated into activities. Mission must be translated into goals and goals into activities. And activities must be scheduled. If you don’t make time for the important things in your life, they’re not going to be there. I’m even talking about rest and recreation. If you don’t schedule time for your family, you’re not going to have time for it. You need to write it in. Make appointments. Whatever you need to do, put it down on the calendar.
Psalm 90:12 (Living Bible) “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.”
If I were to tell you that a new bank has opened in Angelo Street, South Perth and they have opened a free account for you and everyday at 7a.m. in the morning they deposit into your account S86,400 and you can spend that $86,400 any way you want to. The only thing is at the end of that 24-hour day anything that you have not spent is debited out and you lose it. What would you do? You would figure out a way to spend $86,400 in extravagant ways. You’d try to withdraw as much of it out as you could.
Everyday God gives you 86,400 seconds. And if you use them, great. If you abuse them, not so great. If you waste them, it’s a bad idea because you’re wasting your life.
Mission Guided Time Management is really based on two ideas…
Do less of what I’m not shaped to do and more of what I am shaped to do!
Do less of what everybody else thinks I ought to do or the world thinks I ought to do and do more of what God has shaped me to do!
I have just enough time to do God’s will. That’s why I said earlier, if you have too many things that aren’t getting done it means some of it obviously isn’t God’s will. He doesn’t expect you to do more than He gives you the time to do. So you’re either doing the wrong things or you’re doing the right things in the wrong way.
I’m preaching to myself this morning. One of Satan’s strategies is to keep us busy on less important items. If Satan can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy. If he gets you busy, he’ll make you ineffective.
Proverbs 10:27 (Living Bible) “Reverence for the Lord adds hours to each day.”
He’s talking about more than a quiet time. He’s talking about an attitude here. Put Jesus at the centre of your life.
There’s no possible way to balance your life if you don’t have Christ at the centre.
Prayer
Many of us, we know what to do. We just need the power and discipline to do it. And that only comes from God. Are you tired of trying to keep up? Are you fatigued by activity driven living?
Jesus Christ offers an alternative to you today. It’s called Mission Guided Living.
He says, “Come to Me you who are weary and heavy laden [that means stressed out] and I will give you rest.” He’s not going to load more on you. So come to Him today and right now in your mind say,
“God, I give You all the things on my To Do list. I give You all the responsibilities that I have. I give You all the pressures that I feel. I give You all the duties and tasks that are undone. I ask You to help me. Give me the power and the discipline to devise my life goals based on my mission, to organize my activities around my relationships, and to harmonize my schedule around what I say is really important – my values. Please help me. Jesus Christ, be at the centre of my life. I want to follow You from this point on. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
