The Big Rocks

The past two weeks have been crazy busy! But super fun and, more than that, empowering! Parachute Band, Zone Camp, Getting Started, great weekend services, preparation for the upcoming events in December, etc., etc., etc.

After stopping to thing for a while, I am remind me of a short story I once heard--something that has helped me over the past years during busy times like this.

One day a wise teacher was speaking to a group of his students. He pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placedthem, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, heasked, "Is this jar full?"

Everyone in the class said, "Yes.""Really?" he asked. "Let's see." He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Looking carefully from face to face, he smiled benevolently and asked again, "Is the jar full?"

His class was catching on quickly. "Probably not," one of them answered."Very good!" he replied. He then reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.

When he was finished he onceagain asked, "Is this jar full?""No!" the class shouted. "Excellent!" he replied. Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it in until the jar was filled to the brim.

Once again looking intently into the eyes of each student, he asked, "What is the point of this illustration?" One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some morethings into it!" "Aha, that's very good!" the teacher replied, "But let us look a bit deeper. This illustration also teaches us a higher truth: If you don't putthe big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all!"

This week, I'm excited to have all my big rocks in place--a very long time with God during rest day, some EV/integration outings, preparation for VBS and some other things. It's going to be a great week ahead. =)