Productivity With God ….

This ended up being a lengthier post than I intended. …

I’ve been quite productive around here lately.  Last week I started cleaning up our spare rooms. I got the first one cleaned up enough to walk into it. It still need help but, the rest of the stuff in there is R’s.

I then moved to the other spare room. It was looking great until last night. … More on that later.

After that room I moved to our huge hall closet. I was able to condense a few boxes. I’ve been through many more boxes and have a big stack of stuff to sell.

Last night I moved back to the 2nd room to clean out my teaching files. I’m not sure when I last went through all of them. That nice neat room I spoke of a minute ago is now covered with papers to be recycled and curriculum I won’t ever use.

 

I started this post on Monday of this week. Last night I continued my productivity by sweeping and mopping most of the house. I still have the hallway and Kitchen to go. I also got the dishes done and got 4 patches sewn on R’s uniforms.  Really, I got quite a bit done in just a couple of hours.

I have really been struggling with motivation lately; more like lack of motivation. I haven’t even had motivation to blog.

I had a revelation last night. On the days I’ve prayed for God to give me motivation, I’ve rocked and have gotten all kinds of stuff done. The days I haven’t asked for his motivation, I’ve accomplished  NOTHING! 

Part 2

I’ve been listening to classes from a church in Tulsa. I enjoy these classes so much! I’m excited to get through all the classes so I can start on the sermons.  I wish I lived in the Tulsa area so I could attend the congregation. They seem like such a loving caring church.

I think the main reason I’ve enjoyed these lessons so much is because they really make me think. I love Bible classes that make me think and look at things from a different angle.

Another reason I’m finding these lessons so refreshing is because I have no idea what our preacher is saying on Sunday mornings. As soon as he stands up to preach my mind shuts off and honestly, I have to force myself to stay awake.

That leads me to the following question:

Is is better to go to a friendly congregation where you don’t completely agree with the preacher? But, you know it’s an environment that you will be noticed and maybe even meet some people or find friends.?

OR:

Is it better to go to a congregation where you love the worship time, but only know 1 couple (who are moving next month) after attending for 7 months?

As I write I think I’ve found answered my own question.  If I’m not paying attention to the preacher as it stands, Why am I focused on the worship aspect? I think it’s ultimately better to have the interpersonal connections opposed to a great song service and I LOVE a great song service. (Nothing beats a group of 20ish in a cave belting it out.) Not that a cave is my everyday place to get a group together to sing, but man, the acoustics are fabulous! …It was a spring break thing back in college.

As I’ve grown up I’ve realized worshiping God doesn’t just happen on Sunday Morning, Wednesday night, and Sunday night. In fact, it can happen while visiting friends, or serving others. I believe you can even worship while listening to an MP3 recording of Bible classes from a Church half way across the country, or listening to Christian music in you car.  I think you can worship with God in complete silence and stillness while sitting on your couch.

As far as the interpersonal connections I referred to:

Daddy would always tell us that wherever you go, you could always find family at church. Did he mean family by blood? No. But, he meant that friends can be family too. I met one of my closest friends at church about 16 years ago. (I miss you terribly by the way.)

The evening Daddy’s teachings really dawned on me was when I had been traveling on I20 across Louisiana  to my parent’s who lived in Mississippi at the time. It poured from Shreveport to Monroe. For most of that time the only reason I could see the road was because of the school bus in front of me.  … Once I reached Monroe, I finally stopped, called home in tears, to give an update. They had church friends in West Monroe. Daddy told me to drive to West Monroe.  I hopped back on the road, finally stopping at a little gas station. I was back on the phone with my dad he had to call some other friends who we used to attend church with in a completely different town. They happened to be home.

It was at that moment that I found myself thankful for moving and living in all the places we have.  I stayed the night with Mrs. Barbra that evening and made it safely to my parent’s house the next day.  …It’s moments like that when the interpersonal connections are worth so much more than what the preacher is saying on Sunday morning, even if his points are very valid.

I suppose I’ll quit my ramblings for the night. One last comment or 2 before I go. My title is Productivity With God. You may be wondering how the whole second half of this post has to do with God and productivity. … Sometimes it’s productive to reminisce about road trips and singing in a cave simply because they are memories or because you can see God in those memories. (I’ll stop there with the God moments. Simply because there are so many especially during road trips.) Hmmm. …. Maybe a post for another day.

Productivity with God in the second half of this post really did happen while I was typing and thinking. He answered a question I’ve been really thinking about a lot over the past couple of months. …Which congregation to attend? The answer…The friendly one.