Some time back, I had to go to downtown Dallas to the Records Building with our Church Administrator, Leslie, to file some papers.  I took my time planner into the building with me just in case I needed information.  It is my second brain as I carry all kinds of information in it.  We finished our work there, I dropped Leslie back off at the office, and after a few other errands and chores, I came home.  When I turned my car off in the garage, I reached for my time planner and it was not there.  Trying to be cool, I looked around my car and it nowhere to be found.  In hopes it had perhaps fallen into the floor and slid up under one of the seats, I contorted my body in ways a 57 year-old should not in order to check under the seats.  It was not there either.  I got in my trunk and looked around, and even checked my attaché case.  I knew it wasn’t in any of those places before I looked, but I did anyway.  And, I certainly didn’t want my wife to go out and find it and do that thing she does when she proves me to be completely incompetent at finding things.  She gets SO self-righteous as she can find a needle in a haystack.  I tell her she’s good at it because she’s good at creating haystacks!  But that’s another story.  In reality, I had to accept that my priceless time planner was still in the Records Building, and not only that, it was out in a public place nonetheless!

Who the heck was carrying my planner around at that very moment relishing possessing a beautiful $100+ leather binder free of charge?  Might they even be pilfering through my papers and micellanious stuff that I carry in the flaps on the front and back?  Might they be reading the encouraging notes from my family and a few friends that I carry with me to remind me how loved I am?  (Come to think of it, if they read those notes they sure wouldn’t be able to figure out who I was though!)  Might they be going through my notes to try to decode sensitive information in there?  Might they even be Googling my addresses at that very moment, plotting how to use the information to steal my identity or my house or my wife or take over my life, for goodness sakes?!

Well in reality it was highly unlikely that someone doing research on Assumed Names at the Dallas County Clerk’s Office was some crazed maniac out scouring the desks for time planners someone had left behind so that they could probe into secrets or steal identities or storm their homes!  But, you know how the mind works.  But the point is that I have religiously used a time planner my whole adult life and thus it is VERY important to me.

Those that know me know that I really value my time.  Hence, I value efficiency and I carry all sorts of information in my time planner so it’s readily available.  Some information that I shouldn’t carry.  Now, I try to encrypt it as much as possible so that if someone ever found it, using any of that information would be fairly impossible.  But, the bigger problem is that I wouldn’t even have that information myself!  I also have both ministry and business appointments and events planned months out.  I don’t even try to remember those dates as they’re in my time planner.  I had an email from a business customer in my inbox at that very moment asking me to send her some dates we’d set as she had lost her notes on it.  So, you understand my sense of panic at the time.

So, what’s my point in all of this?  Well, I don’t know, but I’m trying to think of a good one as I really felt this was a great story!  No really, the point I want to make concerns the kind of confusion our lives are actually thrown into when we don’t have our plan to look at.  Really, the main component in the life mix is time just as flour is to good cookies.  Nothing else happens in life’s recipes without some of it—“Pour three days of your life into the bowl.  Mix in four cups of heart, broken into pieces.  Add five hours of your mate’s time.  While stirring, add one hour per day of each of your dearest friends.  Mix in loads of money.  Beat mixture vigorously for the rest of the first day and then pray over it for two more.  Enjoy while hot!”  Time is the base of life’s cookies just as flour is for the ones my wife bakes in our oven (no, it’s not cherry red and you'll understand in Part II).  If you’re out of flour, no cookies.  So too, when you’re out of time, nothing else can be accomplished here.

However, I see so many who don’t “carry a planner”.  These often end up in counseling because of the ensuing messes that occur.  Now, I don’t think it necessary to carry the kind of time planner I carry.  I think there are various ways and approaches to time management, although I still believe the old adage is true that, “the dullest pencil is sharper than the sharpest mind when it comes to remembering things”.  I just see so many people that don’t seem to have any plans beyond doing the obvious tasks of home and work—letting the world and those around them drive and steer their lives.  Life is just what happens to them, not what they make happen.  Doing this we tend to be only recipients of life, not givers of it. We become consumers, not producers.  We are takers only.   Doing this we also tend to be more victims of life than victors.