Weather Report

It's cold outside! It kind of makes you want to hunker down with a favorite sweater and book or movie and curl up on the sofa eating junk food and sipping cocoa. There seems to be a real stillness about the neighborhood and a starkness in the landscape. Everything moves in slow motion including me.

Yet, the little girls next door are rolling around with their new puppy in the hard frosty morning grass. They don't seem very concerned about the nip in the air! They have that wonderful youthful energy and playfulness that matches the puppys. They joyfully run and jump and frolic as if it were spring again.

I sit here wanting to move with that kind of freedom and abandon. I think of all that could be accomplished if that energy were mine. Not to mention the flexibility they posess! And then it hits me, it is not the weather that slows me or my pace, it is however the mental restrictions I am considering based on the weather report.

I wonder when it became such an important consideration to consult the weather channel to define my activity level. Granted we should use some caution if conditions are dangerous or as a prompt to insulate. But to pawn off my agenda based on how I percieve my limits before I even step outside is simply masking an underlying motive to avoid moving toward my daily goals.

It is on days like this that I must tell myself to be an ant! The steady and purposeful movements that accomplish each step as a progression to success. Little steps add up to many miles. It matters in health, relationships, finance, chores, diet, just about everything!

When I was younger I remember throwing myself into projects with complete abandon( like the little girls) giving priority to all that I focused on. Sometimes that meant juggling other areas of my life. I guess I would expend so much energy on one thing at a time that I would lose sight of other day to day operations in such a way that when I caught my breath and looked around me little things had been neglected.

I'm not a little girl anymore! I'm a mature women who knows the value of pacing myself like an ant! I can see my goals ahead, I can move with purpose, I can calculate the time investment without losing what has already been invested on previous tasks.

In the Proverbs we are reminded to "look to the ant " to understand acheviement! To prepare for future success, to throw off laziness, to accomplish much. God has called us to dilligence , He has called us to perseverence, procrastination has no place in our vocabulary. And so even though we want to blame the weather for holding us back( or any other excuse,you can fill in the blank) the truth will always be that we were created to recieve a filled up life one day at a time , one decision at a time , one step at a time and one bite at a time, one kind deed at a time. We must choose to make that time happen now!

May each day of this New year bring about a new you as each word, work and act of will propell you toward Gods good plan for your future in 2009.