Today’s Saturday Spotlight comes from Jill Kreiger.
Thanks for sharing Jill!!!
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Now that I am retired from 32 years of homeschooling our kids, (and when I am living life in the flesh! 
) I tend to resist structure; I want to be “free to flow with the whims of the day”, not bound by a schedule or list. Inevitably, however, by the end of these days that I just sort of “ooze through” with no plan or clear purpose or direction, I end up feeling frustrated and unfulfilled, and maybe even a bit forlorn.
Conversely, when my perfectionistic side rears its ugly head, I can tend to swing to the other extreme, obsessively outlining every moment, clinging to the unrealistic expectation that I might actually accomplish a week’s worth of work in a mere 18 or so hours! Needless to say, these days also end in disappointment with myself because my lovely check LIST is sadly devoid of check MARKS!
Godly Structure, it turns out, requires that I ask my Lord what HE wants me to do and accomplish each day. And, as God has also been showing me, when I ask HIM to help me make my plans and my lists, He enables me to accomplish the work! That said, I find it is good to hold loosely to any plans. After all, on any given day, God may call me to something completely unexpected or “off my radar”, so to speak.
In her short piece entitled “Do not rush. Trust. And Keep a Quiet Heart”, Annie Keary, (1825-1879) writes:
“I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline – trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one’s work. Then one can feel that perhaps one’s true work – one’s work for God – consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one’s day. It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think; it is the most important part of the work of the day – the part one can best offer to God. After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it.”
Bottom line: when I am looking to Jesus, (the author and perfecter of my faith!), to guide my moments and my days, I can truly rest in Him as I lay my head down to sleep at night.
-Jill
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