Is LOVE on your “TO DO” list today?
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV
Is love on your list of things to do today? Probably not. The “To-Do’s” that seem to be on most everyone’s daily lists are worldly items. Pick this up at the store, learn a new skill, buy that item, close that deal, and make that follow up call, and so on. People seem to think that once they have money, power, knowledge and influence they will be a success and their list reflects that.
Take a quick look down your list and see if you can find one item you are going to do today that will build a loving relationship you currently have into a closer one. If you look at your list now with this new focus, you should be able to find an act of service that you are only doing because it is for a loved one. “Take kids to practice” “Get groceries” “Clean house” “Get oil changed” are all acts of service you do to keep your family’s world running smoothly – but do they know you do those things because you love them? Do you realize now, that is why YOU do them?
We do things and pursue goals for reasons. If your “To-Do” list has become a weight of guilt around your neck, try finding your root reasons for why you want to accomplish each task. Just implementing this new focus that the unpleasant or repetitive tasks you do each day are to show love to your family, can change your outlook and attitude. Having a motivating reason for doing something makes the doing a lot easier and more pleasurable as well. You may also find you cross off a few items, because you have identified the root desire that put the item on your list, and you now no longer want to pursue that goal.
Love should be at the top of your list everyday. Add at least one item that is an outward display of love for another human being. A phone call to a friend who’s having a hard time, a stop for coffee and conversation, a long hug for a spouse or child are good examples. Then put that at the top of your list, and get at least that one item done today!
The funny thing about doing this is YOUR day will be happier and more focused when you have love at the top of your list!
Let us not become weary in doing good,
Serendipity means an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. The word was coined by Horace Walpole (1717-92) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale “The Three Princes of Serendip,” whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson, a Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
“The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don’t have to gain, develop, or attain them. We’re like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight. We don’t need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we really are — as soon as we quit pretending we’re small or unholy.”
