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A co-worker from long ago had a Yogi Berra moment in staff meeting and said, “We’ve got to have some priorities and some of them need to be first.” The rest of us eventually understood what he meant. It’s one of the biggest challenges of any life to do the important stuff first or even to accurately discern what should be first on our to-do list.
It is a complicating matter that many of our volunteer advisors give contradictory answers about that first thing. They’re very disappointed if we choose somebody else’s first thing, even on our list for today. I find that it is a matter of focus, that almost mystical state of being able to see and hear though the clutter until we make out the path we should take.
When Chesley Sullenberger landed flight 1549 in the Hudson River last month, people hailed him as a hero, a professional, the very model of a modern Major-General or something like that. I have no problem with that although I wonder what we would have said if he had done every single thing that he did but without the blessing of a mostly functional aircraft and a long, straight stretch. I’m amazed at his focus.
As he decided to land the monster aircraft in an unconventional and risky place, Captain Sullenberger had to pay attention to:
?pitch
?yaw
?roll
?wind
?flaps
?fuel
?speed
?rate of descent
?gear
?the length of his runway
?obstacles in and above his runway
He could have also been distracted by:
?his crew (who he knew by name)
?his passengers (who he knew in abstract)
?people along the shore
?emergency vehicles headed toward the river
?buildings around the crash site
?cursing his fowl luck
?his career
?radio chatter
?fear
?thinking about his family
But for long enough, he focused on the one thing he needed to do. He adequately winnowed through all the sensory input to find those things that deserved his full attention and gave it to them at just the right moment. I admire that and find amazing all such stories where a person does a difficult thing just right in spite of a thousand good excuses to fail.
What do you do? All of us have a calling of some sort from God. We might not normally think of our clerical job or sales job as a calling but it is God who provided you the place to work. It surely could have turned out otherwise. As Christians, we serve and glorify God although in a variety of mundane or exalted specialties, but one of those is your bit of the load for today. How do you go about giving it due attention?
For some of us, it depends on how important we think the job might be. If you are in a menial job, you might be tempted to decide how much of the hour you’re being rightly compensated for and then blow off the rest. Your boss steals from you so you steal from him. Actually I believe this way of thinking runs all the way up and down the career ladder. I’d argue that we’re wrong to suppose that we know the significance of our jobs in the eyes of God. God called us to serve him, he gave us days and hours in which to bear his name, and he blessed you and me with ways to earn our bread. That sounds pretty important to me. If nothing else, gratitude should motivate us to wear his brand with all the integrity we can muster.
