We’re recently started a new series called “reset”. Last week, we talked about how Jesus makes it possible to reset all of life, giving us a fresh start in life that impacts every key area. We’re going to look at many of these in depth, starting this week with how Jesus resets our goals.
When my wife and I were having our first baby, we were encouraged to write birth plan. This is where you write down a plan for who’s in the room, and make choices about everything from epidurals to breastfeeding to how bright the lights should be.
I know someone who works closely with an OB, and she has some wild stories about how people let some of the small choices get in the way of the big picture. In a perfect, routine childbirth, a parent’s ideal may be to have the lights just so, no pain with no drugs, and a favourite song playing at the exact moment the child is born.
But when things don’t go perfectly, there are some people who forget the point, or the goal. They start to argue for their personal preferences, instead of arguing for a baby’s health.
When my wife and I were writing up a birth plan, we decided to stay goal focused. The goal was to have a healthy child. All our personal preferences, hopes and dreams for the birth experience were going to be expressed, but we’d drop them in an instant if things were going wrong.
That was a moment we reset our goals…to make sure they were focused on the right thing. It’s not a bad thing in life to regularly reset our goals, and ensure we’re focused on the right ones. Not just in childbirth.
We can get so bogged down in day to day tasks we forget the point in our careers. Do we live to work, or work to live?
I heard a TED Talk (attached) that shared the job description of a hospital janitor. It was what you’d expect – mop, clean, scrub, restock. It had nothing at all to do with hospital patients and healthcare. But some psychologists interviewed hospital janitors. They met one who told them about how he stopped mopping the floor because a patient was walking slowly down the hall. Another told them how she ignored her supervisor and didn’t vacuum the visitor’s lounge because there were some family members who were there all day, every day.
In the drudgery of cleaning, these janitors remembered the real goal of the hospital, and perhaps even of their human race. They reset their goals to be about more than cleaning, but about caring for others.
Question: When have you had to reset your goals? Why did you do it?
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.
Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting this Wednesday, January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!
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I recently read Chris Hadfield’s book – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. Most of us know Hadfield the astronaut – and assume that being an astronaut involves a lot of adrenaline, courage, all focused on the time from takeoff to landing.
But in his book, he tries to broaden our view of astronauts, so we don’t just focus on those few days in space. HE talks about a number of the practices that he’s used in his lifetime…all in preparation for going to space, and debriefing afterwards.
For example, he says he sweats the small stuff, always thinking about the details of how he’d react to an emergency before it happens. He touts the power of negative thinking – he would always spend hours going over his failures with others, to ensure they didn’t happen again.
He studied like crazy - his kids made fun of him for having more homework, and taking it more seriously than they did! All this, in addition to the need for physical fitness and wellbeing with constant trips to the doctor, trying to avoid illness and injury.
It wasn’t glamorous or easy, his life sounds like it’s been so single-mindedly focused on making it to space that it was very boring in many other ways, thanks in part to these practices.
Those kids of practices are what prepared him for his mission going to the space station, so when things went wrong, he was prepared.
This kind of thinking is valuable not just for space travel. Any big challenge needs preparation, and if the challenge is big enough, we need to learn new routines, rituals and practices well in advance, to change who we are in sustainable ways, focusing ourselves on being ready for the task ahead.
That’s why we’re exploring the book of Acts right now to understand the first followers of Jesus as pioneers, and figure out how they organized themselves as a church community. That was a big mission, and they needed some practices as well, to help prepare them for the challenges ahead.
Question: What kind of practices do you think would be essential to being a follower of Jesus?
