Use your head!

Sometimes I need to be beaten about the head with a truth before it gets to sink in....
I can imagine God repeatedly hitting me with a bible verse while saying "Do ya geddit now? Do ya geddit now?"

Sometimes I'm too busy 'doing' to look around at what's actually happening. And poor management of a task can lead to needless suffering. Whether its mismanaging time, people, resources or money, doing good can be done badly.

Moses had the same problem. In Exodus chapter 18 we see him getting down to the daily grind, shuffling off to his outdoor office, where a long queue of people waited for him to hear each and every dispute they had. Moses then had to settle each dispute in a manner that didn't excaberate the problem. This went on day after day, as Moses thought that was the only way to be fair to all those people who followed him.

It took the wisdom of his father-in-law to finally get Moses to look at things in a better light. "The thing that you are doing is not good" said Jethro to Moses.

Now I'm sure Moses was a bit miffed by that. He'd be thinking "I put in 14 hour days sorting out the problems of all these people, I work hard every day to keep the peace, to make life easier for thousands, and you say I'm not doing good!"

Then Jethro gave his reasons: "You will surely wear out, both yourself and these people, the task is too heavy for you. You cannot do it alone."

Luckily for Moses, Jethro didn't just give him a critique of his work style! Jethro then gave Moses an answer to his problem: "Select out of the people able men... let them judge the people.." Spread the load Moses, entrust others to take the burden.
Moses was saved from a case of massive burn-out by taking Jethro's advise.

I've been sucked in at times to taking on too much, to believing I needed to carry the weight of the world on my own. This is folly. Even Jesus choose people to help him.

How are you doing right now? Are you doing too much? Are you delegating some of the load? Are you being wise with what you can do?