One More Step

Vacation was awesome.

Coming back from vacations are often difficult.  Thankfully, this one wasn’t as bad as I potentially expected it could be heading into a busy week.  Tuesday was a super busy day but I think that helped keep me focused on the tasks at hand.

Wednesday though we hit the “theres-so-much-to-do-but-can’t-figure-out-what-to-do-so-I-just-won’t-do-anything” phase full force.  I knew going into today I needed a game plan or it would be easy to let yet another day pass by with only minimal work actually being accomplished.

For some reason this morning I was reminded of a book title I heard recently: “One More Step” by Rachel Wojo. While I haven’t actually read it (though it did get put on my mile-long to-read list), the concept itself was intriguing to me.  Really, that’s what our lives really are made of, right?!? … one step… and then another… and then another.  By simply asking “What’s the one next thing I can/should/need to do?” it takes a huge task (or pile of them) and makes it manageable.

So that’s what I did. Instead of feeling the weight of my entire job of trying to help youth and young adults in this church and community know Jesus and live out their faith, how about I start by finishing the devotion for youth group tonight?  Oh yes, I need the days with big picture planning and dreaming, but the days right after being away aren’t the time for that.  Instead, it’s just one step at a time. I listed all the main areas of my job (and home life) and then just put what one step was that I could do for that area today.

And it worked.  I took one more step for our Thursday night ministry.  One more step for our Sunday morning High School Ministry preparing for the next series (actually two steps here!).  I took one more step to continue to grow the often-overwhelming Lifetree Cafe Ministry at UB.  I took one more step to keep nurturing our oh-so-new church-based college ministry.

I took one more step in a lot of different areas and whether those steps were big or small in the scheme of the bigger pictures, we are closer to our goals today than we were yesterday, and that’s good enough for now.

“Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”  (Matthew 6:34)

One step at a time.