How to survive a busy week!!

Well this week has just been crazy and its not quite finished yet!! If I would have known 10 years ago, when we started MCC and West End Impact, the diversity of what we are doing now it would have blown my mind. It probably would have been too much for me to cope with. When I look back I have learnt so much over the years and one thing I have had to learn is that 5 year business plans do not work. God's timing and our timing are two very different things - sometimes I get impatient and think why are things taking so long surely God wants things to move forward and be successful, and sometime I get scared because God seems to moving quite a few steps ahead of us. Even just this week at the beginning of the week I was frustrated as at the start of this new school year I had made a new start and was raring to go, and already things seem to have got on top of me. So many things to do the URGENT and the IMPORTANT!! So many meetings to attend and so many decisions to be made. So many people who need help and much to put in place until they do start to get the help they need!! Also this week it occurred to me that so many organisations suddenly want to work with us. I guess they have started to see the success of what is happening and have become very curious and very willing to work with us. Unfortunately this has become something that we need to be very careful about, as many organisations also see our kindness and willingness to work for nothing as something they can take advantage of. We obviously, as a church, want to be giving, but we don't want to be taken for granted and this is a very fine line. Some organisation want to work with us on a project that they are getting funding for but expect us to help them for free as we have done this many times in the past to build up our reputation and also to serve the community. I am not saying of course that we should stop serving and giving but we do have our bills to pay too!! In fact our overheads have more than double since we bought the adjacent building. So a lot to occupy my mind, but then today things all seemed to come together - decisions were made some very personal to us, and the place was buzzing with volunteers. We had an amazing team doing building work, and I was in a business meeting which lead to us getting some more funds for rent. We also were given a great coffee machine worth a few thousand and a blow up football pitch. So towards the end of the week a lot of my focus had changed and I was enthusiastic and trusting again that God does always bless us and knows everything that is going on in a crazy week and he wants to encourage. Although not everything is suddenly in place there is loads of encouragement and I know that God has sent the encouragement just so I know that in the business he is there working things out. He also wants us to be wise so next week I will try to take every opportunity to rest and re-focus and make sure I have a good day off and do some fun things!! I love what we do and the diversity of it, I get frustrated at the business sometimes and wonder where on earth the money is going to come from to live on and pay all the bills at MCC and West End Impact - but God never fails to turn up just not always in our timing!! Sometimes what seems to be too late and sometimes about 10 steps ahead of us!!! I need to learn to trust and rest more and more!!