Slowing Down

Imagine its Monday; you wake up at 6:35am and realize that you need to be at work at 7:00am.  You rush out the door, toothpaste still smeared on your chin and jump in the car.  With only fifteen mins left before you need to be at a meeting you pull into a Wendy’s.  You order, pay and get your hot breakfast in five minutes  flat.  Leaving the parking lot you drive to work on a well maintained road and make it to work on time with a full stomach.  That is America, but this is a story about Papua New Guinea.

Coming from a culture that runs on efficiency and speed then arriving at Port Moresby felt like I was walking backwards.  We exited the plane and immediately started…….. waiting.  My first experience with this was customs.  We had a one hour gap between our flight into Port Moresby to Goroka.  In this one hour gap we had to purchase temp visas, wait to clear immigration, collect our bags, pass inspection and check into our flight.  Like a elephant jumping through a hula hoop – “this just ain’t gonna happen”.

One of the things I realized was my expectation of how things should go needed to change.  As we continue to prepare for PNG this thought makes me think on my need to rest completely on what the Lord allows me to accomplish in a day, week, month, year, life.  I may have lofty goals and noble goals that are worth pursuing but a heart set to only pursue goals causes anger when I do not achieve them – resulting in sin.  Here is a great text for thought and I need to think on it more often:

James 4:13-16
“13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.”

How have you been viewing your daily goals?  I would encourage you to think on James 4:13-16 throughout this week in light of daily goals, and please pray for me that I would do the same.