Sharpening the Saw

Hello!

I know I got my order of habits a bit mixed up.  The order of habits is:

1.  Be Proactive
2.  Begin with the End in Mind
3.  First Things First
4.  Seek First to Understand, then Be Understood
5.  Seek Win-Win
6.  Synergise!
7.  Sharpen the Saw

So I have blogged about habits 1 to 5, and I would like to blog about the last habit first, before getting to the 6th habit, cos some of my experiences recently were about that. 

Sharpening the Saw talks about the balance between doing the task and sharpening our tool.  We all know that when we saw a log with a blunt saw, or write with a blunt pencil, we are not as effective in our task.  So although taking time to sharpen our saw or pencil seems to be a waste of time as we are not producing any output, we are actually saving time for ourselves later on.  Easy to understand, but difficult to put into practice when we extend the same analogy to ourselves.  While we are not tools, we also need to take time to hone and prime ourselves - to rest, to recharge, to meditate and consolidate, to learn new things, so that we are sharp and fresh and effective, when we go about our daily living. 

As a Christian, the thing most of us struggle with is regular quiet time with God.  Every pastor, church, cell leader and Christian book will talk about the need to regularly read the Bible, pray and commune with God.  But because God is invisible, because God doesn't appear in our face and yell and clamour for our attention, but many other things do (e.g. kids, our spouse, our parents, our boss, urgent emails, even our stomachs), we find it somehow more needful to attend to those, and when we have spent the day doing so, we are usually exhausted, brain-dead, and want to spend any remaining time pampering ourselves with our favourite entertainment, be it a book, a movie, a TV show, websurfing, music or treating ourselves to some comfort food (sometimes a combination of the above) cos to do anything else seems to need too much effort.  To then quieten ourselves, close our eyes and pray to an invisible person, or open the Bible to read, or to spend time listening to God, seems to take so much more energy and focus than we have left at the end of the day.  Ok, so you say, since we have limited mental and physical energy in a day, don't do your quiet time at the end of the day when you're spent, do it at the beginning, when you're still fresh. 

Aha, but then, the morning has its own troubles - waking up late, the morning rush, the lack of time, the need to leave the house in 5 minutes, no, actually, 5 minutes ago - makes any quiet time rushed, hurried, and quite difficult to have any quality or deep conversations.  I say conversation because actually, a relationship is built by conversations and observations.  But somehow we are ok with having monologues with God most of the time, us talking to Him.  Yes, we hear from Him too when we read the Word, but that's like sitting in a lecture, a monologue going the other way, we are a passive recipient.  I like to think that God, being an interactive, communicative God, would actually like best to have a conversation with us, but most of us are probably too busy and distracted to notice it. 

Recently, I had an intriguing thought - whenever my husband is texting or reading stuff on his iPhone when he should be having a conversation with me (increasingly often), instead of stewing and getting angry, I reflect upon how this must be how God feels most of the time!  We are so busy with the people around us, with imbibing media, with doing things, we never notice God is right there waiting to have a conversation with us.  Sigh... guilty as charged.

Anyway, so the one thing that would sharpen my saw, is doing my quiet time.  Regularly. 

So, how did I apply this habit?  Actually just doing a very simple exercise.  And it was triggered by my cell group (again). Recently I learnt during my cell discussion that God talks to us in a lot of ways.  It could be from His Bible, from a sermon, a book, a Christian friend, or any experience we are having.  He could be talking to us.

Intrigued, I went home and over the weekend, I decided instead of my usual laundry list of prayers, I would spend time just listening to God.  So I got down on my knees and my prayer went something like this "Dear God, today I'd just like to hear from You.  I'm sorry I haven't been spending time with You.  I'm sorry.... [and it went on in this vein for a while]... But now, I'm here.  I'm listening.  So, if there's anything You want to say to me, please say it now."

And I stopped talking and listened, just thinking how I'd really like to hear God's voice.  And in my heart I expected God would say "Ah!  It's about time!  As a cell group leader, you should be spending time with me daily, instead of reading fiction books on the train.  And why were you so rude to your mother?  And you haven't been witnessing at your workplace"  Etc etc.
 
Silence.  

"Ok God, whatever You want to say to me, I'm listening." 

And then, out of the blue, I had an impression, a thought, which came into my mind, which was so unlike anything I expected to hear from God, I was amazed.  The last thing on earth I would expect God to say, actually. 

What was it? 

Haha, I'm tempted to put it only on my next blog post, but since I am short of time, I'll reveal it here.

It was "I love you, very very much." 

And that was it. 

Now, as an Asian, if I ever told my parents if there was anything they wanted to tell me, I can imagine it would be a laundry list of all the things they have been telling me, which was all the things I haven't done, or have done badly.  The last thing on earth I would expect them to say, would be that they love me.  And not just that.  But very very much.
And because it was so unexpected, so unlike anything I thought I would hear, I believe it must be from God.  And when I think about it, I feel strangely comforted, and inspired to do even more things for God.

And, this also gels with something I recently heard.  A Singaporean Professor said in China, they were finding out that social networking websites that called the web user "Qin1 Ai4 De" or "dear" or "beloved", had a lot more hit rates than other websites.  People love being called beloved, or being dear to someone, loved by someone. 

And when I asked my hubby to try the same prayer experiment, surprisingly, God also spoke to Him.  Ok God said a lot more things to him, but He started with "Beloved,".  And that is just simply amazing.