juggling

several years ago, I taught myself to juggle. (hold the applause, I know it's terribly impressive!)

I started with scarves ...you know, because of the gravity issue and the ease with which one can pluck them out of the air... and now I can juggle small animals - just kidding!!!! take a breath, PETA...

I am not a very good juggler, really.... When I pick up 3 oranges from the basket on the kitchen counter and act like I'm gonna throw them up and start juggling, Kelly invariably gives me 'the look'.... accompanied by some threat against my person. probably because she's thrown away more than a few bruised apples....

The thing is, we're all jugglers. We are all called to manage the 168 hours God gifts to us each week.... we are all challenged to prioritize events and responsibilities in our lives, and some of us are, well, better than others at it. (frankly, I consider myself about average in that skill set... so I probably actually suck at it, since my opinion of me is usually higher than reality)

And the interesting thing is this: it's not as if the choices we (most of us) make are between 'good' things and 'bad' things... I mean, really, the folks I typically hang with are not struggling to make the choice of whether to 'go home and be with family' or 'go to a bar and get hammered instead' (though some probably wrestle with whether to help clean up the kitchen or play one more game of Halo or Madden NFL '09 - gotcha!)

the vast majority of us are trying to balance an array of good and noble things: family, job, household responsibilities, hobbies, 'church duties', personal ministry, etc... (and sometimes we intentionally blur the line between these 'good' things to make ourselves feel better about ourselves... "no, honey, I plan to talk about Jesus with Bill and Jimmy during our golf match tomorrow!")

and every one of us suffers from a certain brand of arrogance which believes that

"NOBODY IS AS BUSY AS ME", or its second cousin

"MY STUFF IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR STUFF".... or, my personal favorite - uncle

"NO ONE HAS EVER HAD TO DEAL WITH MY SITUATION BEFORE!"

to which we gotta say "get over yourself!" right?

anyhow, the question soon becomes: which of these 'good and noble' things gets my time? (reminds me of a book I've mentioned in this space... "tyranny of the urgent" which, in part, bemoans the fact that the 'URGENT' things in our day-to-day often - if not always - crowd out the IMPORTANT things in our lives...)

how we answer that question tells a lot about us... and people around you DO notice.

so, how good a juggler are YOU?


Blessings!