Getting things done

Yesterday, for my day off, I decided to organize the family room. We moved into this house about a month ago, and this is the room to which all the extra random boxes have found their way. It was a daunting task, but it needed to be tackled.

Sometimes, though (as we’ve seen already this football season) tackles are attempted and totally missed. After a couple of hours, I sat down to take a break and the room looked WORSE than when I started the process.

How discouraging!

But I got back up and kept at it. I had to dig deep and realize that though the space was visibly deteriorating, there was a method to my madness. I had to get to the heart of the mess by unpacking it before I could figure out how to organize it.

In other words, things had to get worse before they could get better.

It’s true in our lives and relationships and workplaces and churches, too. Whenever we encounter a mess and want to fix it, we have to be ready to push through the hardest part—the part where we’ve worked really, really hard and actually feel like we’ve fallen behind the starting line.

That’s when we dig deep and keep working—one. step. at. a. time. — until we see things shaping up. There is an invisible line where you push your issue past the crest of the hill, and momentum starts to build. You usually can’t see it, but you can feel it when you’ve arrived.

And things will shape up. I ended today still far from my original dream of getting it all done in one setting, but knowing that I had made enough progress to gain momentum and have a more clear picture of how it’s all going to wrap up.