Eating An Elephant Whole

I am in the midst of a Bible Study on personal revival. It is a wonderful, yet terribly convicting study.

What I have come to realize through this study is a common denominator in many of my struggles. It seems that the areas in which I struggle most, I always feel overwhelmed. This feeling inevitably masters me and I quickly shut down, making it almost impossible to find victory in the situation.

I get this way in my walk with the Lord, with cleaning my house and with disciplining my children (just to name a few). It seems that there is sooo much to work on and sooo many ways to go about doing it. I am admittedly a perfectionist(though you might not "see" it outwardly) so I don't want to do things the "wrong" way. This means I end up wanting to explore every option, yet not implement anything until I am sure it is the best way. If you have been into a bookstore lately you have likely run across the almost unending sources available on these subjects. This creates an enormous problem for me. I end up feeling as if change is hopeless because there is more to do than I could ever find time for and end up giving up altogether.

I did end up finding a book that was incredibly insightful and has proven to be a wealth of information, not only for the subject it is written on, but also for many other aspects of my life. The book is The Messies Manual.....I know, a funny title, huh...Josh laughs at me when I read it! This is one of those books that you don't take out to read in public because you fear it reveals far more about yourself than you want people to know. Regardless, I took away something from this book that has been vital to accomplishing many different tasks in my life. Are you ready for it? Drum roll please........

Do things in bite sized chunks. Take things one step at a time. Like the saying goes; What's the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time! This should be my life motto! It just never occurred to me that I could clean out the fridge one shelf at a time until it got done! But, if I do that, the fridge will never be completely clean......This is pretty silly thinking when you realize the alternative is to have an absolutely grotesque fridge because you never have the time to clean the whole thing at once. It's like trying to eat that elephant whole.....it's never going to happen! This is my life story.