In my school teaching days we shared this joke: “This form is important. Fill it out in 30 copies, one for yourself, one for your principal, and 28 to lose in the Board of Education files.” I’ve never known a teacher who wasn’t plagued by paperwork that seemed to have no value.

It’s not just teachers who face this problem. The late Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian minister and author of the Bible translation The Message, spent three years developing a new church. Every month he filled out the required forms and mailed them to headquarters. After awhile he began to wonder if anyone read  his reports beyond the statistics on the first page. He began making up more and more outlandish stories for his reports. He warned his superiors he had become an alcoholic, that he was having an affair with a woman in the congregation, and that he was using hallucinogenic mushrooms in the communion bread, but nothing provoked a response. He only got a rise out of them at his final interview where he confessed to making up the craziness in his reports which they didn’t even bother to read. It makes you wonder what’s really necessary.

So much of our time is spent doing things that seem urgent, but aren’t important, while neglecting what is important.  Maybe when we are being overwhelmed by things we should ask ourselves whether what were doing is necessary. Does it bring us closer to God? Does it give us peace? Does it promote the well-being of others? If not, fugeddaboutit!

Read Matthew 6:19-21 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne