Discovering your Just-Do-Its
The second most fulfilling thing in your week
Want a more fulfilling life, one week at a time? You have landed on the right page.
The second most fulfilling thing you can plan into your week is a Just-Do-It discovery session, whether solo or with 2 or 3 friends. Just-Do-Its are specific things that God's Spirit prompts you to do as you look at a short Bible passage and listen for his guidance.
What is the the most fulfilling thing to put into your week? Doing the Just-Do-It item God gives you during your discovery session.
Strange as it may sound, this discovery process actually works, no matter how much or how little a person already knows about God or the Bible. Ideas come into the minds of people who are willing to listen for their "Just-Do-Its".
Then they go do them, counting on God to give them whatever it takes to get the assignment done. The following week they reflect on the process, then listen for a new Just-Do-It.
7 things you have to love about discovering your Just-Do-It assignments
As you discover the Just-Do-Its that God's Spirit is assigning to you as part of his campaign, it gets easier to SYNC (See Yourself iN Christ). Here are some fulfilling things you may realize and enjoy as you go along. These may come in any order.
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You are in SYNC with the universe. You know your assignment this week in the campaign God is carrying out to bring everything back into harmony under Jesus the Messiah. It doesn't get any better than that!
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You always have time to do your Just-Do-It assignment. You always carve out time for the things that fulfill you. You know your life would not be fulfilling without them, and who can stand that thought? Besides, if you discover something specific that God has had in mind for thousands of years for you to do this week as part of his campaign to save the world, you automatically have time to do it. How could you not?
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You are always capable of doing your Just-Do-It assignment, though not in yourself. God puts the Spirit of Jesus into those who ask for his help. The Spirit gives us the power of the living Jesus, the power of heaven on earth, so that we can do things we would not normally be able to do. And after all, why would God give assignments to people without giving them the tools/skills they need to get them done? That would be pretty poor campaign management.
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You get guaranteed immediate gratification instead of possible eventual gratification, and the guarantee holds regardless of how big your Just-Do-It action was or how much impact it had. You are fulfilled right away because you know you did the right thing and you did it because God assigned it to you for someone else's welfare, not your own. Contrast working for years to achieve something, then either giving up on it or reaching it, only to find out it doesn't feel nearly as fulfilling as you were sure it would!
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You get cumulative, lasting gratification. Unlike the thrills of computer games or roller coasters, fulfillment from Just-Do-It assignments compounds over time instead of fading away. Just when you think you have all the fulfillment you could possibly hold, you get more!
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You have something to share that your friends will love. You know how to discover Just-Do-Its, and you know that anyone willing to listen to God can follow this method. You know the fulfillment that comes from doing Just-Do-It assignments. You have the instructions for the "Buddy System" of sharing Just-Do-Its, if you opt to do that. (See at the end of the solo instructions)
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If you are in a Just-Do-It group, you get some additional benefits. An alternative name for "Just-Do-It groups" is "Listen and Cheer groups". You listen to God with others, and you cheer each other on from week to week. The groups are a reminder that we all are part of a campaign team. This is not simply each of us relating to Jesus on our own.
FAQs
Has God really got an assignment with my name on it for this week?
Ask him. He will hear your question, and he can get back to you through his direct line to the deepest level of your inner self. His method of letting you know your assignment will vary according to how you are wired, which he totally understands.
The Just-Do-It discovery process creates a good listening atmosphere so you can "hear" from God in whatever way he is letting you know things. It raises our expectations. Our problem is that we aren't expecting God to have anything personal to say to us so we aren't regularly listening for it.
We relegate God to timeless commands like, "Love your neighbor." That was just as much a command thousands of years ago as it is now. But "Go say hello to your neighbor over the back fence while he's mowing his yard," is a personal and immediate Just-Do-It assignment. God puts thoughts like that into people.
But is that how God wants us to operate--depending on those thoughts? Not by themselves. We don't wait to say hello until we get a specific nudge from God to do that, but neither do we rule out the idea that God may sometimes nudge us, letting us know something specific that he wants us to do in the next day or two. And we set aside some time to give him a golden opportunity to nudge us if he wants to.
God has a master plan, and he did not leave any loose ends. He knows our names, our trajectories in life, our situation this week, and he saw it all coming. "He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." (Ephesians 2.10)
We are all aware of a little voice in our heads that sometimes tempts us to do something we know is not the right thing to do, something we would not do on our good days. A weekly (or daily) Just-Do-It discovery session gets us into the habit of listening for a different voice that drowns that voice out and gets us busy doing the right thing.
What if my Just-Do-It assignment is too big to finish in a week?
You may have chosen a never-ending item like, "I need to be more generous," or "I need to control my anger better." People do that all the time as they try to "apply Scripture to their lives", but when they focus on never-ending assignments, they always feel they are falling short.
If a never-ending item came to your mind as you were listening for a Just-Do-It assignment, ask the Spirit to narrow it down for you so you have something you can finish this week.
For example, "This week I will find some way to be generous to someone God is putting on my mind right now," or "God has put someone on my mind just now. I'm often angry at this person/jerk. This week I will put a daily reminder on my phone to ask God to bless him/her."
By asking God for a specific Just-Do-It assignment like that, you get to celebrate finishing it. The joy is important because it makes you eager to listen for your next assignment, not discouraged because you fell short. A never-ending assignment is never finished, and you never get that joy.
How does listening for Just-Do-Its make the world any better?
God planned his campaign to change the world, to connect, heal, and bless it, to get it out of the mess it is in. That mess is still there for two reasons:
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Not enough people listening to God about what he wants them to do next
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Not enough people cheering for other people who are doing that kind of listening
The Just-Do-It discovery process makes us better participants in God's campaign. We sense God prompting us to take small "Just Do It" actions in our everyday worlds. We prevent pain and we help people deal with the pain they already have. We connect people. We bring blessing. We become blessings.
Of course, by themselves our small actions are not enough to make the world much better, but two other things are going on that multiply our positive impact far beyond our own potential.
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God prearranges situations. At just the right time he directs us to do a particular small thing that fits perfectly with what he has set up. Though we may not realize it at the time, our small action tips the balance so that a huge change takes place.
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God commands us to multiply. He doesn't just want us to listen better ourselves. He intends for us to get more people listening to him like we are. That's why we encourage solo users to stay alert and sense the right time for them to adopt the "Buddy System" and/or form a Just-Do-It Group.
How do Just-Do-It groups work?
We listen to God-given Scripture and God's Spirit for guidance about his campaign and our next assignments. We cheer each other on as we discern or sense our assignments and carry them out.
Group leadership rotates. Anyone can lead because no one is teaching anything. The leader is just a moderator. All the leader really needs to know is where to find the instructions. He or she might glance through them before the meeting or might not.
After our group has met for a few weeks or months, we start listening to God to see whether it is his time for us to start other groups so there is more listening, cheering, and doing. That's what God wants. And because the process is so fulfilling, we want the same thing too. What could be more fulfilling than helping other people find a new way to live more fulfilled lives and cheering them on as they do?