Good intentions and a slight excitement coursing through my mind … something I did not have in my grasp in a long time.
I was going to head upstairs, sit at my computer and dedicate one hour … just one hour to editing the book I finished writing last fall.
Then I decided to first make a coffee.
Then the machine showed the message that it was time to descale.
I followed through with that process … that thirty minute process.
Then I thought I would cook the potatoes for potato salad.
Then I emptied the kitchen food waste container.
Then I finished taking the hardware off a wooden box I wanted to paint.
Then I went up to my office … to get a paintbrush to paint the wooden box.
The next thing I knew it was three and a half hours later, I still had to make the potato salad, call my mom, take the things on the kitchen counter to put away in the garage …
Rabbit holes … places where the time for my well intended plans go …
Writing, editing of my book was left at the base of the tree, while I slid down into one rabbit hole after another, until the time available for editing my book was gone.
As the time to write past I heard myself echoing the words of Paul, the author of the book of Romans (7:15)
“I just don’t understand myself. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I don’t want to do.”
Of course the rabbit hole that Paul was talking about was the rabbit hole that is sin. Nonetheless, I get what he is saying. And, well … sometimes I just think that it is some dark pitchfork-wielding character in my mind that keeps me from completing what I so want to accomplish.
Paul goes on to say, (19-20):
“ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
That final comment resonates in my mind. For I do often feel as though I move from task to task as though on autopilot, moved by an invisible force.
Though there are many things in our lives that we have choice over, things that are not inherently good or bad, focusing on what we are called to do, being purposeful in our efforts to accomplish tasks that we are called to … that bring us life, takes effort. It often means having to put blinders on and moving forward.
Ah, perhaps today will be one that I will be able to the good I want.
itsawonderfilledlife 