What's on the Agenda?

            Tomorrow morning at eight-thirty my co-workers and I will gather for the Monday Morning Meeting. (Original name, don’t you think?) At the beginning of the meeting we pass around a sheet of notes. On that sheet we find who’s going to be out during the week and when, what we need to get done by Friday, what we have to start by the end of the week, and also what we accomplished last week. We use the page of notes as an agenda.

            So what is an agenda? An agenda is a plan or list of the things that should be discussed at a meeting or a list of things to be done in a particular order. An agenda brings order to a meeting or a situation so things can be accomplished.

            Did you ever go to a meeting that had a clear purpose but no agenda? How about a meeting that had neither a clear purpose nor an agenda? Both meetings can be a waste of time because there is no direction or format for discussion or planning. We all know that if you aim at nothing, you are very likely to hit it!

            Sometimes I’m similar to an agenda-less meeting. I have a purpose all right, but I assume that I remember the agenda without regularly reviewing it. What was that again? I am here to follow Christ and adopt and represent this mission to a lost world. Christ was reconciling the world to God. That’s what he did relentlessly. He didn’t ever get distracted from the agenda of his father. He was always, always doing the work he was sent to do.

            If you want to distract two of my daughter’s dogs, all you have to do is say, “Squirrel!” They have nothing on their minds but getting to the patio door and surveying the backyard for the bushy-tailed “enemy.” Satan yells, “Squirrel!” at me sometimes, too. And you know what? I get distracted. He tried that on Jesus, too, but it never, ever worked. Jesus was absolutely focused on the mission God had sent him on.

            So, for me, what I have to do is to keep the agenda before me all the time. What am I supposed to be doing? How am I supposed to be doing it? When something or someone yells, “Squirrel!” I have to keep the agenda right in front of me. What am I supposed to be doing? Conform to the image of Christ and be about the Father’s business of reconciling the world to God through Christ.

            What’s on your agenda?