Bridget A. Thomas
Every day is a gift!
Daily Reminders
In my last post I mentioned that in the month of July I held a personal challenge. Today I wanted to tell you exactly what that looked like. I started by making myself a list of daily reminders.
- Pray every day – there were specific things on my prayer list that I wanted to make sure I remembered each day.
- Do only one thing at a time – in today’s fast paced culture we pride ourselves on multitasking. But multitasking is not always a good thing.
- Tell the Lord I love Him – this is something I forget most days. I am quick to ask Him for things, but forget to express my love.
- Praise God – if you have been following my blog, then you know this is something I wrote about extensively as the world faced the pandemic.
- Choose joy – too often I allow little annoyances in life to bring me down. But we have a choice. We can let irritations get to us or we can choose joy.
- No negativity – the Lord has been reminding me a lot lately that general negativity and complaining creates a wall in my relationship with Him.
- Slow down – I had many things on my plate and felt the stress of it all. The pandemic taught me to savor my time and everything else would fall into place.
- Be intentional – this is a little phrase that reminds me to focus on the things in front of me. Too often we go through the motions of life, but we are not always paying attention to what is right before our eyes.
- Be present – similar to “be intentional” and “do only one thing at a time.” Our bodies might be in one place, but our minds can often be a million miles away.
- No expectations – as a child when my birthday rolled around, I was focused on what presents I might get. My father used to remind me that I shouldn’t expect anything. He was right. But it’s not just about birthdays or gifts. It is about every moment of every day. (I wrote more about this on a recent Christians Read blog post.)
- Stay off phone / devices – technology is a blessing and a curse. Devices are a huge distraction in our world today. I imagine the enemy getting a good laugh at all the Christians who have their noses stuck to a phone because the more time we spend on our phones often equals less time working for the kingdom of God. I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but it’s true.
- Check email once a day and not at all on Sundays – checking email got to be such a robotic habit. More often than not, I wasn’t expecting emails, just looking to see if anything new had come in. (I do not have notifications turned on for this on my devices because that would drive me up a wall.)
- Do not get on Facebook except for one Bible study small group which I was a part of – I have a love/hate relationship with social media. It can be a good tool to stay in touch with people. But it can also be a pit of negativity and distraction.
- No blogging / WordPress – Sorry to say I needed to eliminate this for a time because I allowed it to take up much of my time. Focusing on God needed to be my number one priority.
- Words With Friends only on Friday and Saturday – in case you are not familiar, this is a scrabble type game that you can play with your friends. At one time I used to play it daily. But I have been cutting back over the past several months. So this was not a change for me. Just a reminder. It is nice to play a fun game with a friend at times. But for me, I have to limit my time on things like this because it can become too much of a habit. I want my heart tethered to the Lord and that means eliminating distractions.
- Kneel before the Lord – every morning I take a moment to kneel before the Lord and hand my day over to Him.
- Exercise – it is no secret that exercising is good for our physical health and mental health.
- Amazon / General internet searches: only handle necessities. For everything else, make a list for future reference – Often times when I am looking for something on Amazon or searching the internet for something, it feels super important in the moment. I have to get this new product right now. I have to find the answer to this question right now. That is how it feels. But in reality, those things aren’t that important. I have found that if I write them down, later on I won’t care as much and will scratch it off my list.
- Books: limit the number I read at any given time – I am always eager to start a new book, but this means whatever book(s) I was already in the middle of reading fall to the wayside.
I realize this list might seem a bit overwhelming. I am not going to lie. I did not do a great job in all of these areas. Exercise for example. My husband and I might have ridden our bicycles only once in the month of July. But having a list helped me to stay focused on the right things.
Also, some things came into play that were not on the list. For example, the Hallmark channel and the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel held Christmas in July. So, watching Christmas movies almost daily took up a lot of time. But watching these movies with my husband was a nice way for us to spend time together. And this also helped me to just “be” and not “do.”
I also returned to crocheting in July. (More on that in a future post!)
But I must say that one thing which really helped me in July was to have daily check-ins with myself. In my journal, I wrote the following questions each day: How did I do with my July challenge? What did I learn? This truly helped me to stay focused and to keep my distractions limited. If I had a bad day, I could see that right away and this helped me to refocus the following day. Mainly I tried to slow down and eliminate doing too much out of habit. I will be touching more on some of this in the weeks to come, so please be sure to stay tuned!
Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. – Psalm 62:5-6
© 2020 Bridget A. Thomas
Bridget A. Thomas 
This is a really great list, Bridget. Yesterday I started trying to make myself a schedule to use my time more wisely and prioritize my days. It’s a bit slow going. I think I have to take each day of the week separately to see what I am doing with my time each day and then adjust accordingly. So it’s a bit of a project, but it should be a step in the right direction. Also working on my prayer journal, so I feel good that with the Lord’s help I will start to move in a good direction. Slow is one of my goals too. I always rush everything and don’t take enough time to really Savor the Lord and everything He provides. I too can forget to give him praise. So there’s still so much work to be done in me. Thankfully, He is patient and kind. ❤
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Thank you, Tina!! I love your idea of making a schedule. Personally having a routine helps me. That is a great idea to note what you are spending your time on each day. Sometimes there are things that suck up our energy which we don’t even realize. Slowing down is something I am really passionate about right now and will probably be writing on in future posts! It sounds like we are on the same wavelength yet again! How amazing is our God! I too am thankful for His patience and kindness because I sure need that grace every day! Thank you so much for commenting. I always love to hear your thoughts and the things on your heart!! ❤️
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The feeling is mutual. ❤ Yes, our God is amazing! ❤
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I really like your list Bridget. It is good to take the time to reflect and by writing all these down, it brings to your notice all the things we overlook that are necessary for our walk with God.
Praising God more, choosing joy, slowing down and limiting time on my phone are all things I am aware of and am working on.
I am a bit like you with regards to getting all excited about a new book. I have two books I am yet to finish and was just thinking earlier that I should not be jumping from book to book and you mention it in your post. Although it did feel good to know that I am not the only one prone to doing it.
Blessings to you dear friend 💙
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Thank you! Having a list was helpful to me. I often want to see change in my life, but if I don’t set guidelines, those changes can look messy and never truly come to fruition. I am glad to hear you are working on some of the same things! It makes me know for sure that God is in this and had brought us together. About the books – before digital books came around I was good about reading one book at a time and I would get more out of them. I am thinking about going back to reading “real” books. Although I love the digital idea because it means less clutter. So I am torn! Either way, I will have to be disciplined about sticking to one at a time. And yes – I too am glad I am not the only one. LOL. Thank you for commenting! I always love hearing your thoughts. Blessings to you as well ❤️
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This is awesome and so incredibly insightful!!
Love the sort of “theme” throughout this post: slow down, don’t take on too much!
And you’re so right about electronics!! Ugh they’re time suckers and mostly I wish they weren’t such a source of “connecting”…I would’ve been a good candidate to live in the 1800s probably 😅❤️
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Yes! You summed it up very well – slow down and don’t take on too much. 😊 I will join you in the 1800s!! Lol! 😁 I am glad you enjoyed the post. Thank you for stopping by ❤️
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