The One Big Idea...

A group of six of us just got back this afternoon from LA (that's Los Angeles, not Lower Arkansas) after attending a three-day Celebrate Recovery Summit. It was INCREDIBLE. The worship, the speakers, the testimonies, the encouragement...all of it was fantastic. Oh, and did I mention it was in Southern California? One of my favorite places on the globe...

My rule for any of these conferences I attend is that I must get one grand idea, and it is all worth it. If I spend $1000 on travel, hotel, meals, and get one $1000 idea out of it, I'm well ahead. Well, I'm going to give you my one grand idea...for free! It came on Thursday afternoon, from Dr. Henry Cloud, psychologist and author (and a pretty darn good speaker too). It had to do with the difference between the URGENT and the VITAL. To sum it up, VITAL things are those decisions/actions that are not immediately gratifying or frutiful, but produce LIFE-SUSTAINING results. URGENT things are those that may produce short-term satisfaction or results, but end up robbing you of LIFE. For example: you choose to work late again because your boss has asked you to; as a result, you miss your son's baseball game. The immediate payoff is that your boss is happy and you earn some overtime; the long-term payoff is that your son does not trust or expect anything from you, even in times when he may need his father the most.
Why is this a grand idea? I was very convicted in that, while I would love to spend all of my time on the vital things, oftentimes I spend a majority of my days doing the urgent things, and especially doing the urgent things that either a) other people have deemed urgent for me, or b)others have left undone. And, when it does come time to do the VITAL, I find that I am doing them just to check off of my list, therefore relegating them to the urgent. "There is a way that seems right to man, but it ends in death..."

there's more to this concept, but if you want to read more about it, I guess you'll just have to get Dr. Cloud's book, The One-Life Solution, and read along with me.