Only God Gets His To-Do List Done

I don’t know about you but Mondays are hard days. I’m tired. I’m sad to leave my husband after a weekend of being together. I didn’t finish all I had hoped to over the weekend. And I have a to-do list waiting for me when I get in to the office.

It can feel daunting starting a new week, or any new thing for that matter. Expectations are high even when energy is slow to catch up. If you are like me you feel the pressure of a new week before your feet even hit the floor in the morning. There is so much to be done. And unfinished tasks scream failure—or at least to me they do.

I need a little perspective on Monday. Only God gets his to-do list done.

And I am not him. I am Courtney. Finite, feeble, weak, and in need of a good dose of caffeine to move me along on a slow Monday morning. God always accomplishes what he says he will. He is never tired and never overwhelmed. He is God and I am not.

While I need to learn to make realistic goals for myself, I also need to understand that I will never complete all of my tasks perfectly. Only God can do that. When I fail to cross every detail off my list, I can simply, as C.J. Mahaney puts it, “try again tomorrow.”

A tangible reminder that I’m not God and cannot always complete my to-do list is that I get tired. God never tires. He never sleeps. But me, I sleep. This sleep is a gift from God (Psalm 127:2). I can either stay up feverishly attempting to complete every task on my list, or I can joyfully submit to the reality that God has made me finite and in need of rest. He gives me rest so I can see that I need him every hour of the day.

Even though I did not get to everything on my list today I can sleep tonight. I’ll admit it’s not easy. But it’s good for me. Every unmet expectation is a reminder that God is in the details of my life molding me into his image, showing me more of my need for him, and teaching me that only he gets his to-do list done. And I can, by his grace, try again tomorrow.