And now for something a little bit different...

In Call it What You Want, the author confided that she has no deep, dark secrets. I, of course, have many. One is that I am not left handed. If I told you the rest of them, they would no longer be deep, nor secret (though they could still be dark).

Really, I wanted to shift from the "what I did on my summer vacation" theme that I seem to have going, and dig a little deeper; to explore the "why" instead of simply the "what."

To do that to the level I'd like to go to would take a considerable amount of reflection and an adequate amount of time to do such. I realize that I don't have that kind of time. In fact, I have very little structure to my time right now, and that's one of the problems. My days have oozed together so there is precious little difference between them (except for Sunday). I pray. I research for my upcoming sermon. I work on planning out services and themes and so forth. I check e-mail. I pray. I look at Scripture. I decide what music we'll sing. I practice. I plan. I think about stuff. I work more on the sermon. All week, this is what I do. There isn't any real difference between Monday and Thursday. Nor between Saturday and the rest of the week.

Why is that?

I don't have a schedule.

When I was in high school, I remember getting poor grades in such classes as Health. It wasn't, of course, that Health class was difficult. The problem was it was too easy. It was just that it bored me. I also remember getting better grades while I was in the midst of soccer season. Why? I thought then that it was because I had to structure my time. It could have been that, but it might have also had to do with the fact that I was doing what I loved. Not just school.

I had all intentions of getting somewhere on the reflection side of things, but then I got bogged down in trying to register for a seminary class, so I chewed up the better part of an hour doing that, and now I'm out of time.

See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. For an unstructured, relational person, I do need some structure. If I don't schedule things, they won't happen. I think it has something to do with laziness. Most people wouldn't call me lazy -- after all, I work out regularly, I run a lot, I still play soccer whenever I can, and so forth, but when it comes down to it, I guess I am. I'd rather avoid conflict. I'd rather be undisciplined. I'd rather not stretch myself.

I guess that's where God comes in. He's consistently reminding me that I need to be disciplined, not just to follow a list of rules and regulations (i.e., like the Pharisees), but in order to be the best I can be. Jesus was pretty clear; he told his followers to "keep on knocking, keep on seeking, keep on asking." Not just "if it's hard, quit" (or however Homer Simpson put it).