Applying lessons is when you learn them

Twelve weeks seems like a long time when you haven't felt well.  It is now twelve weeks since I had to leave church before preaching and hit the sack, the weeks since have varied in how tired or ill I've felt, but it is twelve weeks since I felt 100%.  I'm much better than I was, I even managed to play football and cricket in the garden with the boys yesterday afternoon.  But it is also twelve weeks that God has been to continue to teach me about himself and myself.  Today sees me back to the doctors again and we'll see where that leads.

But now comes the hard part, it's one thing to learn the lessons that God has been teaching me through all this in the comfort of home it is another thing to put them into practice in life.  I may have recognised that I'm prone to saying 'yes' to everything, and that I am prone to find my identity in what I do but it is another thing to say 'No' to opportunities and people.  I'm grateful to God that he has put people in my life who say 'No' for me, 'No' I don't want you at that, 'No' we can manage without you.  But I am also having to learn to say no to good things for myself, my hunch is this is going to be an ongoing struggle.

I'm taking some time to work out some priorities so that when an opportunity comes up I have a set of filters to run things through before I respond or get involved or not.  But the challenge is to make those priorities Biblical, loving and God honouring.