Page 46 - Faith-Based Workbook 8-27-18

TOPUCU Adult Faith-Based Workbook
"In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty." — Proverbs 14:23 (ESV)
you live in a house and you wake up one day
knowing that tonight there will be a birthday
party at your place. You prepare by mowing
the grass, weeding the flowerbed, cleaning
the garage, straightening up the basement,
setting up chairs and tables and getting the
grill prepped. By the time the party begins
everything is ready. After the party is over,
you clean up and when you sit down to
rest, you think to yourself, “Did I mow the
lawn this morning?” You’ve accomplished so
much during the course of the day that you
can’t even remember what you did in the
beginning. That’s an effective day.
Most people live efficient lives, but if you
want to become a champion or to see true
transformation you need to live an effective
life. You need to plan for effective days, even
if you’re not having a party or planning for a
major event. We’re not saying you shouldn’t
have any efficient days. Every so often, you
should plan to have days when you can
relax and do only what has to be done and
nothing more. But these kinds of days can’t
dominate your life if you want to see change.
If you don’t see immediate results, you can’t
allow yourself to become discouraged. You
must continue to strive for as many effective
days as possible.
Let’s consider the life of Harland David
Sanders; better known as Col. Sanders, the
founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC
as it is called today. He was not an overnight
success. In fact Mr. Sanders was at the age
of retirement before he became Col. Sanders.
But from the time he was young he never
gave up and he never stopped trying to live
an effective life. In the early 1900's he had
several odd jobs, working as a fireman, an
insurance salesman and eventually running a
filling station. When he wasn’t pumping gas,
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he decided to use his spare hours to cook
chicken on a skillet he kept in the back of the
station and sold it to his customers. People
liked his chicken so much that he was able
to open up a restaurant. After experiencing
several ups and downs in the restaurant
business, including the great depression
in the 1920's and 30's that forced him to
close down and catastrophic fires that left
his properties in ashes, Col. Sanders was
finally able to establish a steady business in
Corbin, Kentucky. But soon, he experienced
another setback when the new Interstate-75
was built in 1955. People were no longer
stopping through to check out the Colonel’s
chicken. They were now just passing by.
Sanders was forced to sell the restaurant
and at the age of 65 he had to start all over.
He took off on a road tour trying to sell his
secret recipe of pressure frying chicken in
his own special mix of herbs and spices to
different restaurant owners. Col Sanders
visited over 1,000 locations before someone
finally bought his recipe. It was at the age
of 68 that he had his first franchise and
the rest, as they say, is history. Today KFC
is a household name. It took time for Col.
Sanders to achieve ultimate success. And
notice his story is full of effective days in
which he filled his downtime with activities
that promoted positive transformation in his
life. And what we’ve spoken about today is
only scratching the surface. If you look up
the story of Harland David Sanders you will
find a man who spent his life trying to live as
effectively as possible. Yes, it took some time,
but it paid off!
So how do you spend your 168? Is it efficient
or is it effective? Are you cooking chicken in
your spare time or just eating it? Are you the
man in Jesus’s Parable who is investing his
money, or are you the man who is sampling
burying it away? Every hour you have; every
minute you have is an opportunity to make
that choice. Let’s look at another individual
who made the choice to live effectively
and examine the technique he used to
accomplish great things.
At the turn of the previous century Andrew
Carnegie was on his way to becoming
the richest man in the world. As he was
building his steel empire he was challenged
with prioritizing his tasks and creating the
most effective days possible. He contacted
a man by the name of Ivy Lee who is
widely considered to be “the founder of
public relations.” Mr. Carnegie felt Mr. Lee
could teach him how to use his time more
effectively. He was right! Ivy told Andrew
to make a list every night of the things he
wanted to accomplish the next day. Then he
told him to prioritize the list from the most
"…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint." — Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)
important to the least important and do
the six most important things on the list.
As Andrew Carnegie began to use this
principle he discovered that he was
accomplishing more important tasks every
week. He taught this principle to his direct
line of management who then taught their
people and so on. This simple principle is one
of the main reasons why U.S. Steel became
the world’s largest steel manufacturer in
those days. It was one of the keys to his
living a very effective life.
Now it’s your turn to make a list. If you were
to get a pencil and paper and write down all
the tasks you wanted to complete the next
day what would it look like? Obviously there
are some important things that will end up
Lesson 6: Part 2
at the top of your list like attending work or
school or other aspects of your life that you
are obligated to accomplish on a day-to-
day basis. And, of course, there are urgent
matters beyond your control that arise from
time to time. But in most cases, from day to
day, your list will be filled with a collection
of tasks, goals and desires. Now once you
get into the habit of prioritizing this list by
importance and making it a point to check
off the 6 items at the top, you’ll begin to see
just how much you can get done in a day.
You won’t be able to procrastinate when it
comes to getting your homework done or
going to the gym because there are 4 or 5
other things on your list that you have to
accomplish. You’ll look at the list and see
that reading a chapter from that “How To…”
book is of more importance than watching
TV or playing video games. Is this to suggest
you can’t do the things at the bottom of your
list? No, that’s not the case at all and this is
also not meant to encourage you to work
yourself to death. But times for amusement
should be limited. And those things that
are useless and even harmful to achieving
positive transformation should be eliminated
altogether. If you stick to this principle you’ll
find yourself at the end of the day saying, “I
can’t believe how much I got done today."
To further help set you on the path to using
your 168 hours a week in an efficient way,
here is an exercise you can do. Most of you
aren’t going to like this because this exercise
is really going to challenge you to look in
the mirror and examine exactly how your
priorities stack up and whether you’re living
an efficient lifestyle or an effective one. We
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