The Bigger Picture

“Hurry, hurry, we have a lot to do today.”  “Come on, hurry.”  “We don’t have time for that.”  These are probably the phrases that my girls remember me saying frequently when they were little.  I was the queen of giving the “2-minute bath”, and I prided myself on the fact that I could whisk my girls in and out of the grocery store in 30 minutes at the ages of 2, 5, and 7.  Until one day my daughter looked at me with her earnest little face and said, “I know Mom, we don’t have time for that”.  Whoa! Mom failure.  I can’t remember what we were doing or where we were headed that day.  What I do remember is that dreaded feeling that I was so busy with my own “hurry” that I was missing out on my most precious blessings, my girls. 

I have always been the type of person that makes an unrealistic list for my day and then gets frustrated when I can’t accomplish everything I set out to do.  I suffer from a type AAA personality.  Learning to slow down and take time to enjoy life is a skill that I am constantly relearning.  I still have life failure moments when I don’t get it right, but it’s a continual work in progress.

One trick that I have picked up along the way is what I call “big picture thinking”.  This type of thinking brings back into focus what is most important to me ~ God, family and friends.  It is the measuring stick I use when trying to prioritize life.  God has provided us with the frame for our bigger picture. 

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
~ Micah 6:8 (ESV)   

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.”
~ Matthew 22:36-38 (ESV)

Keeping these foundational thoughts in mind when trying to decide between “want to”, “need to” and “like to” type of tasks helps me focus.  In the bigger picture of my life I want to be known as a Christian wife and mother who strove to love God and family. I have various other roles that I may be remembered by, but in the end the only thing that will matter is whose I was and who I belonged to.

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
~ Matthew 6:19-21 (ESV)