Where attention goes, energy flows.
When my wife and I moved into our house we were so excited. For weeks and months leading up to it we would go over as it was being built and just imagine all the empty space being filled with our furniture, friends, and upcoming memories that would last a life time!
The day we moved in, the living room was empty. It was still the living room, but as it was it sat bare. Waiting for the living to actually leave its mark. And that’s exactly what we did. We set up the couch, the record player (for nostalgic purposes), the coffee table, the rug, a small plant in the corner, and mounted the tv on the wall, with the fireplace and mantle being the staple of the room. Ah, now it was a proper living room. A space now meant for living. And now, even more excitingly, the perimeter is lined with toddler toys.
We have a pretty high standard for that space. We want it naturally to be lived in, but we don’t want it cluttered. It’s important to us that it’s warm and cozy, but just as important to us that its comfortable and clean. Things have their place within it.
Our desire is that its a safe and comfortable place for us, but also for those that come into our home as well.
My point is this. Your life exists. But it’s all the things within your life that actually make it what it is. You’re not just a machine or a gelatinous blob of cells and skin.
It’s your relationships, experiences, and decisions that make up your life. And as I often state, the current state of your life is determined by how you live it in the meantime.
In the meantime is the space between where we are and where we hope to be. And as I just said above, your ‘right now’ is the outcome of your past meantime decisions, actions, and practices.
I don’t want to lose you in the weeds, so let me get to it. Just as our living room is made up of the couch, rug, toys, and side tables, your life has its own fixtures.
I believe that all of us have six major components that make up our life. Those revolve around the health of our:
Spiritual practices
Mental practices
Physical practices
Relational practices
Financial practices
Vocational practices
Those six components composed together are what we call our life.
I want to spend the next six weeks covering those components!
When it comes to me sharing insights, tips, and practices around these components I want to make one thing clear…I don’t believe myself to be an expert on any of these components, but I do believe I have enough experience in each of the six to talk about them!
For the sake of not making these blog posts ridiculously long, this blog is only the intro. Next Monday I will publish the first in depth look at the first component of Spirituality and then will release in order as we go!
By the way, I’m doing a parallel discussion over the components on my podcast, “IN THE MEANTIME WITH TIMMY RIGGS” which you can actually skip ahead if you want and hear my thoughts on the first component of spirituality here. Or you can do it all in tandem and wait until I release the paralleled blog.
So today, my challenge for you is this:
Over the next week, begin to find space to think about your life in relation to the six components. This past weekend my pastor dropped a line in his sermon which stated, “Pay attention to what you pay attention to.”
For far too many of us we give our extremely valuable attention to things that bring little to negative value in return. We easily get caught up in the national gossip of the week, which tends to lead only to stress, anxiety, and fear. That’s not a life worth building, nor is it the type of life that Jesus has called us to.
So if you find yourself being someone that thinks “I would like to build a healthier more fulfilling life in the meantime”, then it is paramount that we give our attention to the areas of life that actually make that happen.
I’ve created a quick thirty second survey connected to my website that you can click here that will help you give some attention to the health of these components in your life. It can be completely anonymous or you can leave your name and email. If you do, I can email your answers to you as well so you have them.
Once we have a broad understanding of the health of our components we can begin to turn our attention in the direction of helping them improve for the better!
In my next blog, I will dive into Component #1. I talk about what a spiritual life is, how it can grow, and how it’s far less euphoric than we often make it out to be!