If we are going to see lives change, we need to take unusual steps. This is not a game we are playing. It's a matter of life and death. 2003 |
ORDERING YOUR PRIVATE WORLD BOOK REVIEW Chapter One – The Day I Hit The Wall Fast start fits with the vocabulary of perceived success. Those who brought their lives into discipline or intentionality would, more likely, go on to long term lives when discipline and depth paid off. And those like me, who relied heavily on natural giftedness, would reach some high point early in our lives and, more than likely, trail off into averageness for the last half of our days on earth. By the end of the day, you could say that I had gone through something of a conversion experience. I would deliberately reorder my life, I determined, and I would do my best to jump the track from a life and work based on natural giftedness to one built on discipline and intentionality. I tried as best as I could to acknowledge to God my regret and I had misinterpreted the conduct of my life and use of my natural gifts. I wanted him to know that I desired to change and that if He would intervene in my spiritual journey and acquaint me with some new processes of discipline, I would listen as best as I could. I was seeking a renovation of my life. First step – journal. I declared that I was going to bring my life under control, into order. I was, for sure, never going to go through a morning life that again. These declarations and others were not easy to fulfil. I am not by nature an organized peson. I do not pick things up automatically. I do not finish things before I start something else. I am not good with details. I can easily forget things I’ve promised to do. And I can get easily distracted. I am a day dreamer. I can be very playful and I can fall effortlessly into the trap of trying to please everyone. Renovating these parts of my life – that’s what I had to do. OPW is written by a naturally disordered man who had to get his life in line if he was ever to amount to anything. Forget about the gadgets and start with the interior, the private world. The order we seek begins with a thorough scouring of the inside of life. With tough questions that it may take others to help us answer. With a confronting of beliefs and principles that are toxic and destructive. With a listening to the voice of God who has better things for us. Memo to the Disorganized: If my private world is in order, it will be because I am convinced that the inner world of the spiritual must govern the outer world of activity. |