August 10, 2011
When you’re on vacation you have some time to think (I know, it is a dangerous thing). While on my vacation last month I spent valuable time wondering why there are always so many things I am not able to finish or get done at all. You try your best to get everyone visited that needs it, everything written (letter, e-mails, sermons, etc.), everything that needs doing, done. Then there’s family stuff – taking care of spouse requests, contacting larger family members, keeping up with kids, grandkids, and friends. The house, the yard, the truck or car that needs attention, all clutter up your to-do list. Personal medical issues require attention. Taking time to exercise, play, and rest are difficult to fit in. There’s just more to do than anyone can possibly get done on time with proper effort. It is such a frustrating and time consuming thing to get it all accomplished.
People who retire soon report that they don’t see how they ever had time to work before. No one that I know has ever reported to me that they had done everything to their satisfaction. No person in history has ever been able to say, “It is finished,” except Jesus. So why should any of us expect to be the exception and get it all done.
Maybe the genetic scientists are on to something. Maybe we could be “cloned”. We have the technology, so why not? Come to think of it, here are several reasons why we shouldn’t do that:
1. If I know my wife, and I do, she would want Gary #1 for a particular thing, not Gary #2 or #3.
2. Some folks would want the real preacher to visit them instead of one of the subs (as they would call them).
3. The lists would just get longer, the phone calls more demanding, and the jobs more difficult.
4. etc., etc., etc.
Somehow I think I will just have to continue making choices, some of them the wrong ones. Only God can be everywhere at once with all his faculties fully engaged at each place. So everybody get prepared to see Gary passing by, doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, but looking very busy and fully engaged as he goes at it with everything he has. It will have to do because there’s only one of me.
Gary
