Daily Fenelon > Consistency
Consistency
I've noticed that you always want to drop one thing to hurry on to the next. Yet each task takes you far too much time to finish because you dissect everything far too much. You are not slow—just long-winded. You want to say everything that has the slightest connection to the subject at hand. This always takes too long and causes you to rush from one thing to another.
Try to be brief. Learn to get to the heart of the matter and disregard the nonessential. Don't spend all your time musing! What you really need to do is sit quietly before God and your active and argumentative mind would soon be calmed. God can teach you to look at each matter with a simple, clear view. You could say what you mean in two words! And as you think and speak less you will be less excitable and distracted. Otherwise you will wear yourself out, and external things will overpower your inward life as well as your health.
Cut all this activity short! Silence yourself inwardly. Come back to your Lord often. You will get more accomplished this way. It is more important to listen to God than to your own thoughts.
It is not enough to like good books. You must be a good book yourself. The people who knew God best had more problems than you, yet they kept their peace and cultivated simplicity, purity, and inward prayer.
I believe that your busy life exhausts you in every way. Don't let your work carry you away and eat your life up. Take time to renew yourself before God. Be brief and act quietly with your business affairs.
