In Which Sheila Declares, "Sow!"

"Sow an act...reap a habit; Sow a habit...reap a character; Sow a character...reap a destiny."

This year, 2011, is my year to sow. My word for 2011 is "sow!". Every day this year so far, I've thought at least briefly, if not at length, on the above quote - how my every day actions point to my destiny. I am trying to do something each day that sows towards my intended purposes, both short and long term.

Just one of my intended purposes is simply a more organized home. Just like you, I have days when I look at my long "to do list" and do not feel like getting to work on every single item on it. I feel like cherry picking what I will and will not do.

Here is the thing that has motivated me on those days, whether I'm feeling a head cold coming on, or the weather has been so bleak and gray as to leave Zig Ziglar feeling flat and unmotivated:

I tell myself this: "A little bit of something is far better than a whole lot of nothing."

That's it. For some reason, that does it for me, 99% of the time. Nine and one-half times out of ten, I will find it in me to get busy doing what I should be doing when I think that one simple thought. I didn't read it anywhere, never heard it said that I can remember - it just dawned on me like a tiny epiphany.

I look at my list and see, for example, "clean the laundry room". Maybe I'm sick, or maybe unmotivated. After all, I am my own boss, and I won't get in trouble with me if I don't do it. But then I think, "A little bit of something is far better than a lot of nothing."

...and then I get out there, if nothing else, to vacuum the rugs and sweep the floor. Usually, before I know it, the washing machine is glistening inside and out (I found a new product, an inside-the-washing-machine-cleaner, made by Clorox. Great stuff.) my cleaners are organized, my laundry detergent got put in a cute clear container with a pretty scoop, and the trash cans emptied.

All I was going to do, was a "little bit of something"...anything, even if that little bit was just a swept floor...but beginning something has a certain power in it. You tend to become vested in what you've begun, and you want to see it through to some semblance of completion.

There are a hundred different examples of the importance of sowing daily actions towards a desired end. I wish I had chosen a better one than my "to do list". But this blog entry is what it is. Hey - I'm here, and I'm posting almost daily, which is better than what 99% of bloggers can do. Simply showing up here almost every day puts me in the top 1%. So I'll let this post say what it is going to say, and not try to seem more brilliant than I am. After all, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.

What does a well stocked laundry shelf, and a sparkly-clean washing machine have to do with sowing? Well, you don't become what you dream of becoming - you become what you do on a daily basis. I highly value the ability to self-motivate. It is a necessary trait, this being able to do over and above even the tasks I assign to my own self, when no one is there to see or care what I do.

I don't want to get into a habit of disregarding my own inner drive to get things done. Am I "there" yet? No...there are still days when I don't do everything, when things are left undone for no truly good reason. But they are getting fewer and fewer. I am sowing small actions that are turning into habits that will be my character that will be my destiny.

My destiny, involving the personal goals that I have, makes it necessary for me to be independent and self motivated. Every little act I can sow in that direction is going to reap a harvest.

It isn't about performance. It isn't about earning God's blessing. It isn't even really about how hard I can work, for the sake of working. It is about wise sowing. Increase belongs to God, the harvest in my life will be all Him, nothing of me.

I just have to sow.

"...What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. Gal. 6:7 (MSG)