I ended my last article, Imparatives, talking about the four imperatives of my week. I’d like to talk a bit more about the importance of imperatives, why they have to be first, and how to make them first.
Stephen Covey relates a story in his book “First Things First.” A presenter at a seminar pulled out a large platic container with wide opening at the top. He set it beside of a pile of fist sized rocks. He proceeded to fill the jar with the rocks until he reached the top. Then he asked the audience “Is the jar full?”
The audience responded “Yes.”
The presenter then pulled out a bag of gravel and filled the jar until no more would fit. He asked the audience again “Is the jar full?”
The audience, getting wise, responded “No!”
The presenter smiled and pulled out a bag of sand, and filled the jar with that as well. Again the question “Is it full?” was met with a resounding “No!”
He then pulled out a pitcher of water and then filled the jar one last time. He asked “What lesson can be learned by this illustration?”
One audience member shouted out “There’s always room to fit more into your life!”
“No!” said the presenter. “The point is that you never could have fit everything in if you didn’t get the big rocks in first!”
Now, this is an old story – “First Things First” was published in 1994 – and the idea of getting the big stuff into your life first is far from new. You’ve heard it before, and it probably stresses you out. It stresses me out too.
The problem with just saying “Do the Big Rocks first” is that there’s no definition for “Big Rock”. Is it the doing of your ministry? Is it running all your errands? Or getting caught up on your email? Is it the ministry team meeting? Is it…?
My friend Jay Pathak breaks the “Big Rocks” into three catagories:
1) Time to Rest & Reflect
This is central to creating margins in your life. If you don’t take time to rest you will, by definition, redline the engine of your life. You need to get at least seven hours of sleep a night or you are literally killing yourself. So, sleep. Take a nap. Lay in a hammock. Don’t make lists. Don’t figure out what to do next. Don’t clean your house. Literally, stop.
We don’t tend to stop well. God is well aware of this – he created the Sabbath as a time to stop and then told the Hebrews to kill anyone who didn’t pay attention (Exodus 35:2). If He’s that serious about it, maybe we should be as well.
More practically, you need to rest in order to let yourself reflect on what is going on in your life and to talk to God about it. You can’t be aware of what God is doing in and through you if you are constantly running yourself into the ground.
2) Time to Relate & Love
This topic is a little trickier to talk about in the context of ministry. If you are ministering to people, then you are supposedly with them. For the sake of this conversation, I’m going to split ministry into two camps that I will call “On Stage” and “Behind the Scenes.”
If you are in the “On Stage” group your life is focused on being with people all the time. You are planting a church, or counseling, or an evangelistic missionary – something of the sort. For you to make this Big Rock work for you, you need to step out of your ministry role to just be a person for a while. Watch a football game with your friends, get a cup of coffee with someone close, have your ministry team over for dinner (you’re part of a team, right?).
“Behind the Scenes” people tend not to be in contact with people often. They handle the accounting at a missions base, or they are in their basement writing songs for their next album, or they are doing paperwork at a job counseling center. If you find yourself in this situation you must – as in MUST – be with people. This Big Rock will only get placed in your life if you make a concerted effort to make it happen.
I tend to fall into the latter group. I spend lots and lots of time alone. Because I’m prone to being alone, I’ve crated a group of about a dozen people I set aside time to spend with. I consider this so important that I’ll cancel or rearrange things to make time for these people. If I don’t do this, I loose perspective. I get caught up in activity to the point of forgetting what all the activity is for.
3) Time to Recap & Share
This is focused time for you to write down and tell your stories. This is one of those things where if you don’t set aside to make it happen, you will never “find” time to do it. I’m not going to spend time in this article to go into the specifics of telling a story – we have a free e-book that’ll give you the basics – I’m just going to say that you need to set aside time to do it. It’s a bizarre thing that we do – the things most vital to us end up relegated to the nooks and crannies of our life rather than as the centerpieces.
In all honesty, this could easily be the biggest of the three Big Rocks. However, it is directly dependant on making time for the first two categories, so it makes sense to put it last. You can’t effectively recap and share unless you take time to rest, reflect, relate and love.
I’m convinced that if you are in ministry, your call is to something more than just doing the work. Your call includes inviting people to join you in the work. Jesus told us as His followers to make disciples. You can’t make disciples if you don’t call them to follow you as you follow Jesus. Our job is not to force or trick people into following us, but it is our job to extend the invitation.
So, those are the Big Rocks. If you aren’t getting these three things into your calendar on a regular basis you will implode. Cut an activity, wake up earlier, do whatever you must to make sure these rocks get put in your schedule.
Comments on this entry are closed.