Jack of all trades but master of none. I think that phrase defines me rather well. I can pick most things up quickly (unless it's dancing, because......I didn't get the rhythm gene).
Picking something up is not the real problem though. For me, it's persevering after I start. When something gets tough it’s much easier to find an excuse and move on then it is to persevere and really excel at it. The big reason this happens for me is the fact that after the initial joy of something new, things start to require dedication and hard work to improve or to even keep the status quo. When that happens it’s easier to step into something else that looks fun and forego the extra effort that is needed to progress. In the case of marriage, this can become a mindset that if I just put my effort on cruise control everything will be fine. But that’s not how life works and looking back over my experiences and what the Bible says, I believe God designed life specifically so that staying static won't work. People say hard work pays off and I agree, the Bible puts it this way:
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Proverbs 14:23
One of the big struggles in life is the fact that hard work is a lifelong endeavor. There are times for rest, as the Bible commands, but the process is one requiring continued vigilance. This is true in terms of our Christian walk and our daily life choices. We are working toward a goal, and as we work, God also does his works in us. I think this is more practical than many people, and certainly, I would think. As I look back at my life I have divided (not necessarily on purpose or even consciously) my personal actions and thoughts from my spiritual walk. It's not so much that I just talk a good talk and then live my life how I want, it's more like I have a mindset that says: “if I just think the right thoughts and read my Bible everything will work itself out in real life”. When I write that out it is easy to see that it's totally wrong, but I think this mindset often seeps in because so often in our Christian culture we don't want to (and in fact we can be encouraged not to) take responsibility. We would rather put everything on God and leave ourselves free to float along.
The problem is the Bible doesn't do that. I am not saying we do anything to earn our salvation, but we certainly are not told to be passive in our walk with Christ and that is what I have fallen into. The Christian life is not this magical process where we just read our Bible and God works out his purpose. Again, there is certainly a supernatural process integral to our walk, but it is a process led by the Holy Spirit that includes us making decisions and learning and actually working things out in our everyday lives! We have to search for what we are good at, embrace it, hone it, and nurture it, all in the framework of trusting and growing in our knowledge of God. The two go hand in hand. This is how Paul can emphasize faith and James can emphasize works and they can both be right. In my life, there has been a disconnect between this knowledge and action. Somehow I have come to subconsciously think that if I know all the right stuff my life will just work. Well, for anyone that has been married more than a year or so you know that is totally wrong! You can think the right thoughts all day long, but a good marriage is impossible if you don't act those thoughts out in real life to show your wife that you love and cherish her.
The title of this blog, "My two Things", comes from a book I recently read. The book was Capital Gaines, written by Chip Gaines whom you may recognize as the star of the hit show Fixer Upper on HGTV. In the book, he says that He and his wife "concluded that they can only do two things really well at one time". Anything more than two big life goals to work on was too much (Chapter 13). He was so serious about this that it was the deciding factor in why he and his wife decided to end the Fixer Upper show. They wanted to focus on family and their shop, and the TV show was just too much to add to that.
When I read that something resonated with me. Too often I have big dreams and want to accomplish so much that in the end, nothing ends up being done (back to that Proverbs verse). But for Chip and his family, this was not the case they found what they were good at and went after it, wholeheartedly! I think that is what God wants us all to do. He gave everyone unique talents to use and bless others with. But it's still our choice to use them or to try and skate through life doing the bare minimum. After reading this book and then thinking through it as it pertains to my life I felt that Anna and I needed to come up with our two things as well. But how does that look? First of all, I had to define what a “thing” in our life was. I came up with this:
A thing is a topic/issue or activity that has a long-term beneficial goal that can be accomplished and would take up a good amount of our time.
I don't consider "Christianity" or "God" to be one of our "things", because I consider them to be the framework in which our whole life and these two things are located. For example, golf could be a thing, family, work, even church could be a thing. Of note here is that as a married person I think that the couple needs to have a good balance for their two things. Having completely different ideas of what's important will just lead to strife.
So what are my two things.... here is my thinking process so far. My number 1 is Family, as I mentioned, being half of a married couple should make family the highest priority. For both spouses! (Chip gets it 100% right when he says that he could succeed at 100 things, but if he neglects his family it's all for naught.) If one spouse is pouring themselves out for the family and the other spouse is simply using that to his or her advantage to get away and do his or her own thing...failure will soon follow. Aside from that, I think family is the most valuable investment we can put our time into. The great thing about focusing on Family is that I can still enjoy other things and work on other projects. The focus on family just changes the mindset I have going into these other activities. For example, if I have a remodeling project to do around the house I could just do the job, get it done and move on. Or with the focus on the family, I can get the kids involved, have them help and show them how to do something.
My second thing was harder to nail down, I have many hobbies that don’t fit this definition of a “thing” because they won’t have a lasting impact or because they would take away too much time from the family, which is number one. In light of that, my number two has first become a goal to organize my life and by extension my family life. I have found that my daily life turns into survival mode too easily if I am not intentional with my time. On the flip side a good day is one where I have a plan when I come home from work that can actually be accomplished: play with the kids, read for a bit, get something finished for the ongoing remodel we are doing, go on a date, work on a blog, work on a VLOG, maybe even practice some golf.
When I have a day where I can go to bed feeling like I accomplished something life just feels right.
I have actually put together a check-list of sorts for something I am calling "My simple week”. With this, I tried to get rid of all the unnecessary time wasters and give myself clear goals that I can actually accomplish each week. It leaves some wiggle room for unexpected things that come up and also schedules some of the hobbies that I love. The great thing is that it helps me focus each week in order to not only feel like I accomplished something but to make a lasting impact on my family that will really matter. I even got a whiteboard to help track my progress. I am not perfect at this, but getting started is half the battle. Once I have this part of my life running smoothly, I am looking forward to updating the second "thing" and running after another gift God has given me.
So what are your two things in life, do you think two things are too little or too much to focus on? I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Later this week or next I will write up a blog on what my “simple week” looks like and maybe check in every now and then to talk about what it's like to try and stick to these 2 things.
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