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December 1 - December 16, 2022
“Stress comes from unkept agreements with yourself” and others.
Do we do what we say we will do? Do we let our yes be yes and our no be no?… Ultimately, every act of faithfulness toward others is an act of faithfulness toward God himself.
Though others may make commitments they have little intention of keeping, the children of God strive to prove that their word is their bond.
They do so not to win the trust or approval of others, but because they long to be like Christ. They long to hear with their ears, “W...
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If we care deeply about walking how Jesus walked, we will care deeply about ensuring that our yes is yes.
PRINCIPLE #2 LET YOUR YES BE YES To redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must ensure that our yes is yes from the smallest to the biggest commitments we make.
The only solution is to get all your commitments—all your open loops—out of your head and into a trusted, external system.
we don’t have to actually close our open loops in order for our brains to let them go; we simply have to place them in trusted systems outside our minds.
Paul was saying that part of the solution to our anxiety and stress is clearing our minds of concerns and requests, in this case through prayer.
Be fully present and focused because you’re comfortable with what you’re not doing
Trust that you’re working on the right things rather than hoping you are
First, if you’re overwhelmed, remember this truth from chapter 1: God doesn’t need you to finish your to-do list.
Second, if you have open loops that represent commitments you’ve broken with yourself and others, remember the gospel and extend yourself grace.
“All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation, to all things.”
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
To redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must fight to block out noise and create room for silence, stillness, and reflection.
Like King, you and I have a moral obligation to seek out solitude as we try to redeem our time. Why? Because now more than ever, we are living in what C. S. Lewis’s devil Screwtape called “the Kingdom of Noise.”
Noise: external information and entertainment that block our ability to be silent and reflective
#1: Noise Limits Our Ability to Think
We are drowning in a relentless flood of information—not just from CNN and other news services, but from podcasts, blogs, and social media. And, of course, these sources of noise don’t create just information overload but opinion overload too.
“What’s the number one skill we should be looking for as we consider investing in other founders and CEOs?” My answer came easily: “The ability to discern the essential from the noise.”
As one Nobel Prize winner said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
information in and of itself isn’t bad. Information is a gift! The problem is when the information flow never stops.
To discern the essential from the noise, at some point you have to turn off the information-and-opinion fire hose, get quiet, and simply think. Only in solitude can you separate the important from the unimportant and avoid getting stuck in the “thick of thin things.”
#2: Noise Limits Our Ability to Be Creative
With all the noise in our lives today, we’ve made boredom nearly extinct, and that’s a problem because a lack of noise is essential to creativity.
Noise limits our opportunities to be bored and thus creative. And if we don’t have the space to work out our God-given gift of creativity, it will be far more difficult to be productive.
#3: Noise Limits Our Ability to Cultivate Depth
The research shows that if you spend all your time away from your desk filling your mind with noise, you will have a much harder time focusing on your work when you want to.
To go deep when you’re ready, you have to “wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.”
God didn’t design our minds to merely receive information. He created us to think about and make creative connections between various inputs.
#4: Noise Limits Our Ability to Be at Peace
The rising volume of the kingdom of noise is making us less productive and significantly more anxious.
The data is becoming clearer and clearer: smartphones—the devices responsible for much, if not most, of the noise in our lives today—are robbing us of silence and making us more anxious at work and home.
Paul is telling us that part of the solution to our anxiety is found in what we’re choosing to think about—the noise and information we are inviting into our minds.
#5: Noise Limits Our Ability to Listen to God’s Voice
“The noise of the modern world makes us deaf to the voice of God, drowning out the one input we most need.”
But the problem is less about what noise we allow into our minds and more about what noise we’re keeping out—namely, our own thoughts and ability to listen to God’s voice.
the stillness makes way for the knowing….Stillness is to my soul as decluttering is to my home. Silence and stillness are how I sift through the day’s input.
He said, “When you get to the end of your life, you are going to say, ‘I should have put way more time into prayer, reading, and solitude’
lonely places aren’t places of weakness. They are places of great strength.
PRINCIPLE #3 DISSENT FROM THE KINGDOM OF NOISE
“Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”
PRACTICE 1: LET YOUR FRIENDS CURATE INFORMATION FOR YOU
“There is ego in trying to stay up on everything…in trying to appear the most informed person in the room.”
“Our insatiable desire for information is a clear sign that we covet the divine omniscience….We must observe God’s good boundaries for how much information we can process.”
practicing what bestselling author Tim Ferriss called “selective ignorance.”
“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”
Infinity pools include Instagram Stories, the Facebook News Feed, and news websites designed to make it easy to seamlessly scroll from one irrelevant story to the next.
If you’re committed to keeping social media in your life, consider setting time limits for it, especially on your phone.
