The Task You Keep Moving to Tomorrow Is Trying to Tell You Something

The Daily CHEW™
Moving God’s Love from Head to Heart for Christian Professionals


There is a task on your list that has migrated from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday — and it is about to migrate again. You are not avoiding it because you are undisciplined. You are avoiding it because something underneath it is unresolved, and your body knows it before your mind admits it.

I know this pattern because I live it. Right now, on the corner of my desk, sit four unopened envelopes. I am not a fan of paperwork. Normally I eat the frog — do the hard thing first. But lately I have been getting into early morning flows that lead me to rush through my shower and prep and barely get to the office in time for my first client. I think that is subconscious sabotage. It is like your mom making your favorite dessert but you have to eat your least favorite meal to get to it — and I keep jumping straight to dessert. Give me sessions any day of the week.

When I paused and took an emotional pulse on the paperwork, the first feeling was repulsion. And as I sat in that repulsion, I could sense the anxiety: What if I get it wrong? What if it costs us? I once signed in the wrong place and got penalized severely. Paperwork forces me to slow down — and my wife says I am a shark, always on the move. But what if that slow-down — paying careful attention, singular focus on understanding what I need to do — is actually preparing me for something my speed lacks: conscientiousness? What if God is using the task I most avoid to build the skill I most need?

Saturday’s anchor — Living and Leading from a Loved Heart — taught the practice of Name Before You Navigate. The migrating task is asking you to name before you act — or before you avoid again.

Clarity
What task keeps migrating on my list — and what is the one-word emotional pulse underneath the avoidance? Use your feelings chart to name it precisely.

Hear
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23, ESV). God does not rank your tasks by how much you enjoy them. Scripture reveals that the work you dread and the work you love are both received by the same Lord — and He reshapes your relationship with the avoided task when you bring it to Him honestly instead of pushing it to tomorrow again.

Exchange
If I really believed God’s love is purposeful enough to use the task I most avoid to build something my speed cannot produce, how would that change the way I approach the migrating item on my list today?

Walk (30–90 seconds)
Name the task that has been migrating. Take a one-word emotional pulse on it — what do you actually feel when you think about doing it? Then set a fifteen-minute timer and start it. Not finish it — start it. Pray: Father, You are in this task too. Build in me what my speed cannot. If this is the only thing I do from this CHEW today, it is enough.

With you on the journey,
Ryan

If you had to put this into one sentence for today, what would you say God is inviting you to rest in or return to?

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