Remember when half the country was snowed in a couple of weeks ago? I was one of them. I finally decided to get out one day when the streets weren’t too bad. They had been salted and plowed and people were moving freely about them; I knew the road wouldn’t be a problem.

The problem was my driveway. It’s long enough that it wraps around the back of my house, and I wasn’t sure my little car could navigate this small stretch of ice and snow. It turns out that it couldn’t. I got stuck just a few feet from the street. I tried turning the wheels back and forth while switching from Drive to Reverse to Drive while I jammed the accelerator, but it didn’t work. I tried getting irritated and yelling about it a little bit, but that didn’t work, either.

Finally a guy in a four wheel drive came along with an offer I couldn’t refuse: for $20 he would pull me out of the snow. I took the deal, and within a few minutes I was on the blacktop.

I drove straight to Home Depot and bought a snow shovel. Then I spent a good portion of the afternoon clearing a path for my car to get in and get out. I didn’t want to spend the month of February unable to get out of my driveway.

Resentments are like the ice and snow that keep us stranded, even as the rest of the world passes us by. We stay stuck, spinning our wheels, the path of progress just beyond our reach.

Here are a couple of things to remember. One, when you get bogged down with resentment, you might need a little help getting out of it. Two, if you don’t want to get stuck again and again, you need to do the hard work of clearing away the stuff that keeps you from moving forward.

Jesus said …

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. (Mark 11:25)

Resentment is steeped in unforgiveness. It’s a refusal to let go. And more than your resentment will ever hurt anyone else, it will hurt you. It will keep you stuck, spinning your wheels, angry and irritable, while the world passes you by.

Is there a resentment you need to let go of today?

Victor Frankl wrote, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Think of all the things you can’t control: the economy, your health, your income, the choices that your kids make, the decisions that your boss makes…You may have some influence over these things, but not complete control.

But there is one thing you can control: How you respond to every situation. You can respond with anger, doubt, and self-pity … or with faith, hope, and love. It’s your choice.

Again and again in the Psalms we encounter David in difficult situations — surrounded by enemies, struggling with sin, sinking in despair — and again and again we see his absolute resolve to think right:

Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 43:5)

You can’t control what happens today, but you can control your actions. Don’t let any situation get the best of you. No matter what you face, you can choose your own way.

Legendary football coach Tom Landry said, “The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don’t want to do, in order to achieve what they’ve always wanted to be.”

It’s also said that successful people become successful by doing the little things that average people don’t want to do.

In your work there are probably a few little things that you don’t want to do: items that should be done, but don’t have to be done — at least not yet.

Though the items on my not-to-do list change from day-to-day, they all have one thing in common: none of them are impossible. They’re all do-able with just a little bit of effort.

They have another thing in common: by ignoring them, we short-change ourselves.

We don’t like to call this type of delay by its proper name, but Solomon doesn’t hesitate to: Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. (Proverbs 10:4)

For many of us, that’s all that stands between us and the fulfillment of our goals. A little indolence. That’s not a mountain in front of you. It’s just a hill. A small, tedious, do-able hill.

Challenge yourself and your team today to make a not-to-do list — and tackle these items first, one-by-one. See what happens.

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