Controlling the Controllable

Yesterday I was telling a friend how I spent the morning. Between 7 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. I washed and changed the sheets and duvet cover on our bed, dusted and vacuumed the bedroom, washed the floors and baseboards in the bathroom and bedroom, cleaned out the pantry and mopped the floor in there, removed everything from the kitchen counters and scrubbed it, folded and put away all the clothes and made lists for shopping for the upcoming visit from Alvaro parents from Colombia. (I still have lots of preparring to do for that). I've been meaning to get started on this deep cleaning project for weeks now but just never had the motivation to do it. When I woke up yesterday on my free morning, my inclination was to do some excercise, study my new, "Mark for Everyone" book and then maybe do a little sewing. But then I started feeling the pressure of being overwhelmed by work, worries about friends and family health, relationships that need feeding and the state of the house. Soooooo, I decided to control the controllable. The excercise of dividing the things in my life that are under my control and those which are not is amazingly cleansing. Once I made those two lists, I got busy on the controllable list and saved the other one for bedtime prayer. And by golly, I'm feeling less overwhelmed! Eureka!
I pray all the time for the ability to put tasks and concerns into perspective and I do believe God is a list maker because I frequently get the message to make a list. I make lists of the things I need to do and even lists of things that it would be nice to do. I even have a list of the kinds of lists I would like to make just to make sure I take advantage of the ideas God so lavishly makes me think of. It may not be list making, but I'll bet God is answering prayer in a way that is perfect for you. Quietly listen and then take action.