An Everyday Bliss Guest Post ~ Order as a Way of Life

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ORDER - Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. [Order week begins here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.]


I am totally delighted to have my bloggy friend Katina Rice of Peaceful Divas chime in on this topic. I mentioned in another post a while back that I had found her blog and was just blown away by the zen like approach she had to handling the mundane life throws at us. Her website is a delightful breath of fresh air because she takes a spiritual approach to everything and this grounding gives her a joyful way of being we can all learn from. I hope you all enjoy her generous guest post.

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I love the appearance of a clean surface. It makes me feel as if everything is in its place. To achieve this feeling, I most often stuff things in drawers to get them out of sight. If you ask me what was in the drawers I can’t tell you. The grimace on my face and beads of sweat on my forehead when I try to find something amidst the stuff in my drawers, makes it VERY obvious, that “order” is NOT in there! After I find what I am looking for, or not, I vow to never be in this position again and I set aside some time to declutter.

Unfortunately, once I set aside the “declutter” time, it has turned into an event because of all of my stuffing habits. It takes quite a bit of time to return all the stuffed things to their correct place or to trash them. At the end, I feel accomplished but very gun-shy of attending another “decluttering event” any time soon! Alas, piece by piece, the clutter returns---a never ending cycle.

In addition to our physical spaces, our hearts and minds can also accumulate a great deal of clutter. Joe Stowell said this: “As we rub shoulders with the world, inevitably, perhaps unknowingly, we pick up ungodly thoughts and attitudes. Thinking that life is all about “me.” Demanding our rights. Reacting bitterly toward those who have hurt us. Before long, our hearts and minds are no longer clean and orderly. And while we think we can hide the mess, eventually it will show.”

Stowell goes on to suggest a “spiritual workday”, where we discard bitter thoughts, organize our attitudes, and fill our hearts with the beauty of God’s world. We have all had one of these. We heard someone say something about attitude, time management, etc, and we act all at once to get ourselves “together”. Unfortunately, just like my declutter event to get my stuffed drawers in order, a spiritual workday will leave me weary of hosting another “workday” anytime soon.

Julie Ackerman Link said it best when she stated, “Sin is like the dust and clutter in my house. I want to eliminate all of it with one prayer of confession and repentance. But sin doesn’t surrender that easily. Thought by thought, bad attitudes return. Choice by choice, un-pleasant consequences pile up.”

So, I am left to conclude that ORDER is NOT an event; it is a WAY OF LIFE! Order is picking up my house daily and taking the time to actually put things back where they belong. Order is not waiting until one of my drawers so full that it won’t close, or until I need to find an important piece of paper. Order is deciding which of my things bring me real JOY and getting rid of the rest! Order is having a goal in mind of what the most important things that I need to accomplish in a day are, and THEN building my activities around those. Order is allowing enough time to get places ON TIME!!! Order is being MINDFUL of what my thoughts and attitudes are.

Simply put, order is like training for a sport. Any athlete will tell you, a consistent habit of regular discipline is of far greater value than last-minute preparation. So, the choice is ours: a hit or miss regimen that when all is said and done; actually requires more time and energy and usually does not bring about the desired outcome OR consistently doing what needs to be done even when we are not feelin’ it!

2 Timothy 1:7 (New International Version) 

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, 

of love and of self-discipline. 

Katina J. Rice 

Peaceful Divas

www.peacefuldivas.com 

peacefuldivas@gmail.com

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Please let Katina know what you liked about her post and do visit her place for even more inspiration!

Next Post: The ABCs of a good vision board.

My 13 bliss virtues are 

joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, 

romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, and surprise.



This week we are exploring Order. 

Next week is all about Passion.