But strive first for the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:33
A few weeks ago, Shane offered a Words with the Young People with a vivid metaphor for “putting first things first.” He started with two identical vases, each with a few larger rocks, a bunch of small stones, and a baggy full of sand. The goal, he told the inquisitive young people, was to get all of the rocks, stones and sand into the two vases.
“Where should we start?” he asked. The sand seemed like a logical explanation to our young scientists. So, with the first vase, they started by pouring in the sand. Then they added the small stones. Alas, there was no room for the rocks.
For the second vase, they reversed the order, starting with the large rocks. The smaller stones filled in some of the gaps, and the sand filled in the rest. Everything fit when they started with the big things!
I thought back to Shane’s message the next week when I stayed after church for the Bullet Journaling Workshop. Bullet Journaling, I learned, is a creative way of bringing together goal-setting, scheduling, planning, prioritizing and creating to-do lists.
Jordan Muhs led us through some basics of bullet-journaling, and then set us free to create our own journals. All around me, people were using stickers and markers and rulers to create geometric designs, attractive covers, and inspiring pages. I was stumped. How could bright colors help me get on top of my to-do lists?
Finally, I decided on a simple approach. On the right-hand side of each week’s schedule and to-do list, I drew a red rectangle. In that rectangle I wrote a list of verbs, to remind me of why I do what I do. Some of them had to do with the way I want to live my life as a person: Absorb [beauty], Enjoy [the moment], Treasure [the people around me]. Others had to do with qualities I hope to bring to my ministry: Listen, Mentor, Empower, Create, Big Picture [okay, that one’s not a verb].
For the last few weeks, I’ve continued to draw the red rectangle and write those verbs alongside my schedule. I’ve found that doing so helps me remember to “put the big rocks in first.” It occasionally inspires me to subtract an item or substitute a different one. It helps me put the items on my to-do list into a wider context, to see how they contribute to a bigger picture.
I suspect that I’ll eventually get sloppy about drawing the red rectangle on every page of my calendar, and I will hope for another workshop to emerge to help me find a new way to remember to put the big rocks in first!
May we start with the big rocks, O God, seeking first your kin-dom, trusting there is room enough. Amen.