Two Weeks Ago vs Today

In the midst of the busyness of planning this year's Safety Seminar and working on details for Moody Aviation's Safety Audit I began a post that I never finished. It started like this:

"Two weeks and this will be over! It's a happy/sad thought today as I ponder the many hours we've invested in this year's Safety Seminar and Aviation Audit. When you're focused on a task, working at succeeding at something you feel you are meant to do, it is easy to lose the bigger picture. It's easy to get lost in the details. It's simple to lose sight of the world in the pile of papers, the much-corrected calendar, and the list of tasks that are waiting for you. It's easy to forget what it's really about and the people who matter most."

Those two weeks are now gone, the Safety Seminar and Audit are finished, and I am looking back at what I had been looking forward to. My perspective has changed. I've not forgotten the effort we put into these events, but the effort seems small compared to the results. We didn't make things happen, but things happened. We didn't force God to act, but He did. We couldn't make people engage and learn, but they did. And from this perspective, it feels so worthwhile and I am so thankful we got to be a part of it.

I didn't feel the earth tremble or see a revolution happen. But I see change happening-- new conversations, new understanding, and a new level of engagement. Seeds sprouting and I believe these are seeds that have great potential to produce good fruit. This is what we were asking God for. Not so much a huge one-time change but the start of a process that would carry on and spread. That God would use these events to both encourage and challenge us.

As I look around at the piles of unfinished work around me, I am encouraged by looking back. That set of piles is now finished. And this is mostly a new set. If this is worthwhile, I want to do it. If it is not, I want to leave it undone and move on. But this will not last forever-- none this stuff will. Yet in some small way God allows us to do things and learn things that WILL last forever. That's the kind of thing I want to do, and I have a suspicion that the lasting things have a lot to do with my intentions and my heart.