I find myself wishing I was younger, stronger, and more energetic. I try to do it all, multi-task, and then fall behind and feel like I didn’t get enough done by the end of the day. And the weeks fly by. I have listed, I have work to do, projects, things to read, to write. Where’s my focus?

Supposedly women do not compartmentalize their thinking as men do. We have a hard time focusing on one thing at a time; thoughts and tasks flood our minds. Yea, you men, don’t get this, but the women do. I need to focus on one thing at a time. I need to know what I should be doing. (And don’t say I need to be more like a man.) I appreciate our differences. But men and women need to do this one thing. We can both work on this. We need to develop our sensitivity to the promptings of the spirit. You may want to call it intuition.

According to Boyd Petersen, Hugh Nibley

“has been more attentive to the promptings of the Spirit and more obedient to those promptings than anyone I know. This sensitivity has given him much joy, but it has also required him to tune some things out entirely.” (Boyd Petersen, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life)

Nibley gives this advice:

Let the Spirit be your guide from hour to hour, do what it tells you and do not concern yourself with other things. This is my advice to everyone else. There are vitally important issues which concern us all but to which I pay no attention unless so directed by the Spirit.  This is because:  

1) There is altogether too much for anyone to handle. 

2) The time is too short to undertake certain things unless one is emphatically directed to. 

3) God moves in a mysterious way  —  you can count on surprises.

The important thing is to know that what you are doing today is what God wants you as an individual to be doing. (Boyd Petersen, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life)

There is too much to do, and time is too short, and we are mortal. We can’t do it all. Best to learn this vital lesson and listen to the Spirit.

 

*Updated, originally published April 2014. In memory of my friend from high school, Phyllis Andeweg, who advanced to the next experience when she passed away on May 14, 2019. I’m sure she had a great reunion with her son, Patrick.