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Key Bible Verse: We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing (Psalm 39:6). Bonus Readings: Matthew 6:26-30; Luke 7:36-48; 17:11-19

Driven people are fanatical time managers. Living on purpose requires skillful time management, true, but not the kind that turns brittle, that attempts to quarantine most of what makes life itself—the mess, the surprise, the breakdowns, the breakthroughs. Too much rigidity stifles purpose. I find that the more I try to manage time, the more anxious I get about it. And the more prone I am to lose my purpose.

The truly purposeful manage time less and pay attention more. The most purposeful people I know rarely over-manage time, and when they do it's usually because they're lapsing into a loss of purpose for which they over-compensate with mere busyness. No, the distinguishing mark of the purposeful is that they notice. They're fully awake.

Jesus, for example. He veered and strayed from one interruption to the next, with no apparent plan other than His single, overarching one: get to Jerusalem and die. But He noticed. And those driven to get and spend, to judge and exclude, He called to attention. Look at the birds! Do you see this woman? Where are the other nine?

—Mark Buchanan in The Rest of God

My Response: How is my desire for efficiency hurting my relationships?

Thought to Apply: My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered the interruptions were my work.—HENRI NOUWEN (Dutch-born priest and professor)

Adapted from The Rest of God (W Publishing, 2006) by permission.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Thank You, Lord, for Your infinite patience. Grant me a composure of spirit that reflects Your character.

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