Generosity – Rebekah Wright Online

Intentional But Generous

March 3, 2015March 3, 2015 rebekahwrightonline

My family moved to Wales two weeks ago. That is a reality I am still having a hard time grasping. This thing we have been working toward for 4 years is actually happening now. God has worked in some amazing ways and our last 2 months have been crazy good saying good-bye to our life in the US and hello to our new life in the UK.

In the past two weeks we have had an ever-opening door on our apartment as we have invited people over and welcomed in teens that need a place to talk and a willing heart to listen. To add to all that crazy goodness, our baby girl started school for the first time this week! A new routine is starting in our home and a new phase of family life.

This past week has been amazing, but very full. I decided I needed to go out and decompress and just spend some time alone. Brian graciously said, “GO!” (I might be a tad bit hard to live with when I get to this overloaded state)

When I need to get my priorities back in line and organize my life, it usually goes like this:

Go get coffee
Start with a small project that will give me a sense of accomplishment

So that’s what I did. I took a bus ride to Starbucks and started deleting old photos off my phone – tell me I’m not the only one that waits until I my storage is full to finally delete those photos that have already been on my computer for months. Anyway, as I did this I found a screenshot of a quote that spoke to my heart right where it was at this exact moment.

“Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it. But be intentional about it.”

Generous but intentional. This is my heart right now. I have made “Simplify” my word of 2015. With this I have wanted to be intentional with what I have, spend, eat, and probably most importantly- invest my time in. But I also want to be GENEROUS. Oh, how I want to be generous with my time. It is one of my greatest fears to take this amazing opportunity to live and minister in Wales and live for myself instead of God.

I love my iphone, my laptop, and I love talking- but I think with a pen a paper. So I got out a notebook and got intentional. 6 full pages and a major cramp in my hand later, I had an idea of what guarding my time and being generous would look like.

This was my process:

I wrote “What is Important?” across the top of the first page. I started with God and then moved on to people. Under people I wrote out every name that was important to me. People I wanted to invest time in, people I wanted to impact, people I wanted to get to know better, people I love and people I want God to make me love. Under people came my health, my home, and my personal interests.

After I wrote out everything that I have a desire to spend real time on, I moved on to the next page – “What Do These Priorities Look Like?” The names and things written on the first list were goals, but they weren’t a plan. So on this page I started really dreaming. What would it look like to really put time into these areas? Discipleship, dates, budgeting, letter writing, and many more real tangible ideas.

Then comes the putting it all together step. If I had been at home I probably would have gotten out a wipe off board or some cute post- it notes. But I worked with what I had: paper and pen. So I ripped up little slips of paper and wrote an activity or event on each slip. Then I made a week-long schedule and placed the slips of paper where they fit in the week. I intentionally placed the most important items first and worked through my slips.

Will my week really go as perfectly as I have it laid out right now? Goodness no! But I am taking a step in being intentional but generous with my time.More important than following my schedule, it is my prayer that I let God guide my time this week and make it count. May you have a meaningful week too!

-Rebekah

Healthy Soul

How I Intentionally Plan my Week

March 3, 2015 rebekahwrightonline

When I need to get my priorities back in line and organize my life, it usually goes like this:

Go get coffee
Start with a small project that will give me a sense of accomplishment

“Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it. But be intentional about it.”

This was my process:

-Rebekah

Uncategorized

The Green Eyed Monster

April 25, 2014January 2, 2022 rebekahwrightonline

I had a moment of jealousy. Okay, more than a moment. I had a little pity party. I camped out there for a while and even invited God along. I told God all about how unfair it was that someone had more than me, got what I wanted, did what I wanted to do, looked like I wanted to look, my list could go on. This party, it wasn’t just a one night thing, I loved to revisit it and quite honestly sometimes I think I lived there. Then God whispered to me in the middle of my rant: Love People.

Back to this again.

I came across the question recently, “Why is it so difficult to celebrate other’s success?” That’s a hard question to answer. It’s not that I don’t know the answer; it’s that I don’t like the answer. I think it all stems down to jealousy. And who wants to consider themselves a jealous person?

When I looked up the definition of Jealous this is what I found: resentment against a person enjoying success. Here’s the thing I find to be true about jealousy: when I feel resentment against someone enjoying a success, it is impossible for me to be truly happy for them in that success. And let me just be clear, I WANT to be happy for others. As I have struggled with this God has made 2 things overwhelmingly clear to me.

God does not have a blessing bucket. I don’t know why it is so easy to think if someone else receives a blessing from God there will be nothing left for me. Ridiculous when you actually say it out loud, but so tempting to believe when you see someone else get what you want. My God is able to do infinitely more than I could ever ask or even think (Ephesians 3:20). God will never run out of resources – it is just not going to happen.

To avoid jealousy, I need to be generous. I have had the other statement in my head for a while, but once God unlocked this in me everything has clicked. When I am investing in others – time, prayer, resources- I am genuinely happy at their success. It’s crazy how that works! I mean to think that when it says in the Bible, “It is more blessed to give than receive” (Act 20:35) it is TRUE!

God has done such a work in my heart to clean out jealousy and resentment that I have ignored or justified for a long time. But before I close this post and consider it done, I have to look at a second definition of Jealousy that I read.

Jealousy: vigilance in maintaining or guarding something.

So in complete opposition to everything I just wrote- I am now striving to be MORE of a jealous person. As I prepare to physically leave this country and my family and friends, I want to have vigilance in maintaining and guarding my relationships. As I strive to love deeply this year I know one thing for sure, deep love takes time and effort. Loving people is work – but it’s worth it.

-Rebekah