How To Give Order To Your Private World
There’s always something that takes your well planned order of life and changes it. The world will never be in order. Come to think of it, your world will never be in order. The world is constantly changing and there’s very little you or I can do about it. Or is there?
I’ve pulled this book off of my shelf several times over the course of the past 25 years or so. When things get too chaotic and I seem to get lost in the shuffle of, well, shuffling life around, I come back to the principles and concepts I’ve gleaned from this book.
“Ordering Your Private World,” by Gordon MacDonald has been one of those books that brings me back to focus on what’s most important in life. Focusing on what’s most important, I find, allows me to get more done in the areas that seem important but really aren’t. (Read that again slowly. It does make sense, I promise you.) Let me try again… I have a ton of stuff to do but I find I get more of that stuff done when I intentionally take time to keep my private world in order. (I think that was clearer.)
MacDonald’s book is much more understandable, and updated. Written in 1984 with the more recent update on 2003, he lays out the concept of one simple word, spread out on an entire book of practical and deep advice regarding your own struggle for order. The word is character.
It has been said that character is measured by what a person does when no one else is watching. Well, that is your private world. That is you, apart from your smart phone, computer and other electronics. It is you away from your family and friends. It is you, alone before God.
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Order should be mastered in five areas, suggests MacDonald. There’s motivation, use of time, wisdom and knowledge, spiritual strength and restoration. This comprises the five sections of the book that he breaks down into bite-sized, manageable and practical advice.
Here are just three jewels of wisdom from the book that have me turning back to a more ordered life.
“The key word is order, a word of quality, not quantity.”
Spending quality time alone, just you and your Savior. There’s no stopwatch or timer. You’re not fulfilling a scheduled obligation on a daily basis. Imagine doing that with your spouse. Penciling her into your schedule to half an hour between your other activities that seem to demand time from you. Five minutes of quality is worth so much more than 30 minutes of obligation. Learn how to spend quality time with God. This book will help you in this are from a very practical standpoint.
“…I have made a daily determination to see time as God’s and worthy of careful consideration.”
This statement alone puts a whole new twist on time management. Better said, how we plan to use the time we have each day. You don not manage time. Seconds, minutes, tick by at amazingly regular pace no matter what we do. We cannot rearrange it or sort it. It goes by. What we control and attempt to manage is what we do during the time given to us. MacDonald mentions how Christ “measured His use of time against His sense of mission.” Mission, then, should fill our time and we should learn how to channel the two into our own lives in a way that honors Him and not our scheduling acumen.
“If my private world is in order, it will be because I regularly choose to enlarge the spiritual center of my life.”
This is the foundation of the third section. It appeals to me because of the emphasis it put on me to have my spiritual center as my primary center. Everything else must revolve around the fact that I am committed to Christ first and foremost. Enlargement is part of growth. Settling into a regular habit of Bible study and prayer is good, but it can get stale over time. Learn to expand on the base you’ve built. Want more. Desire more.
I’m reading this book again from the beginning. I’ve done this many time as it resets my spiritual compass. If you’ve found yourself in a chaotic state recently, this book is for you. Like any book, you have to decide to do more than read it. take the time to read it and apply it. slowly, deliberately and intentionally.