When I’m working on a project, I have a tendency to leave open tabs strewn across the dock at the bottom of my computer screen. The windows are minimized, but the tabs are there, ready to pop open at a moment’s notice. It saves a bit of time–but not all that much, really, since I also have a links tab on my browser for the project.
We gave our class presentations last night, my husband and I. They went well, we think. My topic was the First Great Awakening. It was difficult to cram everything into a 10-page paper; even more difficult to attempt a 20-minute talk–I think I could do a two-hour seminar, at least.
This morning I did something that felt good—cathartic, almost: I closed all the tabs on my term paper project. Websites for the report, resources for the presentation, the paper itself: all closed. My desktop looks a bit more tidy. But I was surprised that it actually felt so good to close out the windows and files.
It feels good to finish something, to complete a project or cross a task off a list. Some items are fairly quick and painless: Water the plants, finish the laundry, type up invoices. But other projects take awhile longer: Write a term paper, edit a book, reorganize the workshop.
And some projects never really end: Raise children, and be there to encourage them along the way; become a better friend, wife, mother, daughter, sister; grow in the Lord and grow further into what He has for me to do.
I’m a list person. My “To Do” list sometimes seems to take on a life of its own, with quick reminders, short-term and long-term projects. Unless I pay attention, it can get overwhelming.
But you know who has the biggest “To Do” list?
God.
I don’t mean just the whole “running the world” thing, either. I mean day-to-day, with each of His children:
“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
—Philippians 1:6
You know what? While I try to do the right things and to become more like Christ, I find it comforting that perfecting His good work in me isn’t on my “To Do” list … it’s on His.
