Becoming Organized

Growing up with a father who was a time management consultant, I learned to hate the word organization at an early age. It could have been the fact that my father is naturally the most organized person in the world and my personality is the exact opposite in that area.

My father can put his hands on the warranty information on an appliance that he purchased back in 1973 in less than thirty seconds. I, on the other hand, can not locate the warranty information thirty seconds after I purchase the appliance.

I have to admit, my father did the best he could with what he had to work with. While in college he sent me through time management training, bought me a time systems, and tried to encourage me to become more organized.

I finally saw the need for organization when I began to sell advertising for a local newspaper while still in college. After misplacing a phone number or two, I suddenly remembered Dad’s system. I immediately dusted off my time system and put all those years of training to use.

I amazed even myself with my abilities to keep up with contacts, phone conversations and price quotes. I could put my hands on a client’s phone number so fast that the head of the sales department started calling me “fingers.”

You may not need to be as organized as I was working for the newspaper, but we all need a certain level of organization. The absence of organization is chaos.

Every family needs order, especially the children. Knowing what to expect and when to expect it creates a certain amount of security for a child. It also creates an environment where the parents don’t have to re-create the rules everyday.

For example, if dinner is always at 6:00 and the children are expected to be in the house thirty minutes before dinner, then they learn to show up at the house at 5:30. If dinner is anywhere between 5:00-7:00, parents will have to search for their children every night to make sure they are home in time for supper.

The same thing goes for bedtime. If you are tired of arguing with your children every time you tell them to go to bed, start a routine and stick with it. If you remain consistent they will eventually come to expect to start getting ready for bed at a certain time.

Having your family on a routine can create a more peaceful environment by increasing the children’s awareness of their parent’s expectations and reducing parental frustration.

Many people feel that if they become more organized they are giving up control of their lives, that the schedule has become their master. The truth is that organization can help you regain control of your life. You will have more time to do the things you want to do and spend less time arguing with your children at the same time!

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling. You can reach him at (770) 456-5547

The What and Why of it All

As a police officer and as a counselor I am constantly asking people questions, attempting to find out information. As I was sitting and reflecting the other night on the two professions that I am involved in, I began to realize that even though they overlap quite well, I have a tendency to ask different questions in each one.

In law enforcement we are predominantly interested in “what happened.” It is a basic information gathering question. Factual and keeps things on the surface. The famous line from the television series Dragnet was, “The facts, ma’am, just the facts!” Joe Friday didn’t care why something happened, for him to take action it only mattered what happened. It’s what a police officer needs to know in order to do his job.

The only problem with this line of questioning is that it seldom solves the problem long term. Ask any police officer and he will tell you that he has gone to the same house over and over, and has even arrested the same people over and over. They know what they’ve done and they deal with it, but because the root of the problem is not dealt with, the problem continues to resurface.

As a counselor I may start off with the “what” type of questions, but if I am going to be able to help someone make the necessary changes in their lives I will eventually have to ask “why.”

Why is important because it digs deep and gets to the root of the problem. As I continued to reflect on this I began to think about relationships. People typically don’t want to go deep. Oh, they say that they do, but when they begin to old pains begin to resurface and they run back to the surface again in order to keep them buried.

Back on the surface they stick with the “what” questions in order to temporarily deal with the issues. And just like to police officer they wind up fixing the problem short term. Their fear of letting someone in and revealing their old hurts is too much, so they go for the quick fixes. They ask “What do I need to do in order to be happy right now?” instead of, “Why do I constantly do that?”

When we ask ourselves “why,” we are at the beginning of true self-discovery. It is only then we are able to reveal the hurts of our past, confront the lies we began to believe about ourselves, and replace those lies with the truth in order to move forward.

If you are having difficulties in your interpersonal relationships review how you have been handling those problems. Have you been focused on what to do to fix it short term, or are you looking at the patterns of your behavior and asking yourself why you keep doing that?

The questions you are willing to ask yourself will determine the long term success of your relationships.

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling. You can reach him at (770) 456-5547.

God Blaming

I can remember back in my college days at Samford University listening to all the different religion majors talking about their opportunities for ministry. It never ceased to amaze me how they could hear from God concerning their decisions to change from the youth minister of one church to become the youth minister of another.

They would “feel the call” to become the youth minister of one church; it would be the “perfect place,” or so it would seem! After six months the honeymoon period would be over and suddenly they weren’t the new minister everyone loved, they were the youth minister everyone had now gotten used to. Basically that means they became a target of blame for some of the churches problems instead of being the answer to them.

And suddenly they would “feel the call” to minister somewhere else!

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with ministers finding better opportunities, more money, churches that share their vision better, or an admission that the fit between minister and church wasn’t what everyone thought it would be. What gets me is who they blame it on, God!

And ministers are not the only ones to do this. The rest of us Christians do plenty of God blaming ourselves!

The reason this gets to me so much is because a lot of times we use religious jargon to rationalize our emotional desire to do something. It’s as if every good idea we have must come from God! Therefore, if I feel like becoming a Sunday school teacher, deacon, minister, etc., then it must be God telling me to do it!

Call me crazy, but from what I have read in scripture it appears to me that when God did speak to people and direct them to do something, it was seldom something that they already felt like doing. In fact, a lot of times it was the opposite.

Moses didn’t want to be the deliverer of Israel. Jonah didn’t want to evangelize Ninevah. If they used the God blaming patterns we see used so often today to make their decisions Moses would have remained a shepherd, and Jonah would have had a thriving business in Tarsus.

So, why do we do this? I personally believe that it is a religious way out of being responsible for the decisions we make. Think about this, if I do something because God told me to and it fails, then whose fault is it? It’s Gods! We no longer have to admit that we make bad decisions, unless of course they involve sin; all of those kinds of choices still belong to us.

What we fail to realize is that we have great freedom in Christ, and it is ok to fail! Christianity isn’t about avoiding failure; it is more about how we handle it. When you read the parable of the talents you don’t see the two successful men say, “Well, you told me to open a fish market, so I did and look what happened!” The Master gave them the money to invest the best they could, and they did. It was the God blamer that lost favor with his Master. He rationalized his inaction and blamed it on his fear of what his Master would do if he tried and failed.

There are times when God speaks to our hearts, but more often than not daily decisions must be made based on wisdom, the ability to apply truth to our daily lives, not direct intervention from God himself.

So, get out there and risk more. Get in God’s word and learn how to apply it to the situations around you. It’s ok if you aren’t a huge success, and it’s ok if you are. God loves you either way!

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling. You can reach him at (770) 456-5547