{"id":2241,"date":"2020-06-22T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2241"},"modified":"2020-06-21T21:56:18","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T03:56:18","slug":"do-a-little-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2241","title":{"rendered":"Do A Little Less"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We had a lovely Father’s Day yesterday, including with visits with two sons and two grandchildren. June gave me a fabulous book: Really Important Stuff My Dog Has Taught Me<\/a> by Cynthia L. Copeland. This one caught my eye:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Really Important Stuff My Dog Has Taught Me, pages 78 and 79<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The picture and explanation reminded me of a conversation I had with a good friend, a missionary with another organization, who was asking prayer for stamina for themselves and a set of new missionaries as they went through 5+ intense days of orientation via Zoom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Always willing to help (and stick my nose into other people’s business!), I suggested that maybe they were cramming the days too full. My friend wrote back with a list of the stuff they had to cover and how important it all was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the language of this blog, I responded that I agreed with the dog. It doesn’t matter how important everything is, if it’s delivered in a way that people feel like they are “drinking water from a fire hydrant,” the net takeaway will be zero. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want to be effective, do less. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve sat through those meetings (and conducted a few myself!), meetings with hour after hour of briefing after briefing. I’ve preached 30-minute sermons that had 45 – 60 minutes of content. I told my friend that I could \u201ccover\u201d all the salient points of Calculus I in 5 days, but that doesn\u2019t mean that any of the participants would learn any of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, Jesus largely moved and taught at a leisurely pace<\/a>. He told stories. He had margin in his life to interact with the people he met “as he passed by” (see John 9<\/a> and Luke 19.1 – 10<\/a>, for example). Real teaching takes patience and time<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May God give us the grace to be “more productive by doing a little less.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: \u201cIn repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength… (Isaiah 30.15, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Jesus said,] “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me\u2014watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11.28 – 30, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We had a lovely Father’s Day yesterday, including with visits with two sons and two grandchildren. June gave me a fabulous book: Really Important Stuff My Dog Has Taught Me by Cynthia L. Copeland. This one caught my eye: The picture and explanation reminded me of a conversation I had with a good friend, a … Continue reading Do A Little Less<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-A9","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2243,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions\/2243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}