Ps. 119:120
MONDAY
We've got gardens and a patio and a long brick walkway and they all need constant weeding. When spring starts, it's easy to spend a half hour outside pulling baby weeds from between the bricks, drinking in sunshine. I did that today. But as spring sunshine escalates into summer sunmelt, it's a little harder to make regular time for pulling weeds. When I've let the weeding go undone for too long, it's a mammoth task requiring hours. Every time I'm on my hands and knees, easing taproots out from stubborn earth or yanking weedy ground cover out by the fistful, I think about sin. So easy to ignore when it's small. Like a baby weed. But if it's left to grow, it becomes exponentially harder to remove. Not only that, it will also send out little root threads that sprout up farther down the path making the whole thing even more difficult to eradicate. I know that diligent attention to the littlest weeds means that every weeding session will be easier and an hours-long attack won't be necessary. Furthermore, I'm thankful for weeds to be pulled in my gardens because it draws my attention to the weeds that need to be pulled from my heart.
WEDNESDAY
Lunch today:
Oh, springtime, how cheerful you are.
(Even if my fruits are out-of-season and imported.)
FRIDAY
Don't you love it when everything in life suddenly comes together into a single point? It usually happens when I'm reading diligently and especially when I'm reading God's Word and words written by people who love God. This week everything I was reading harmonized beautifully.
It started with the book my ladies bible study is reading, Discipline: The Glad Surrender. "It is nothing short of a transformed vision of reality that is able to see Christ as more real than the storm, love more real than hatred, meekness more real than pride, long-suffering more real than annoyance, holiness more real than sin," says Elisabeth Elliot. She's talking about thinking, using the mind properly. She's talking about evaluating choices and actions. She's talking about ignoring feelings even though they feel most "real." When we're thinking wrongly - or not thinking at all, but merely feeling - the mind will always wander into anxiety, fantasy, indulgence, or bitterness. Right thinking requires diligent attention.
Into this conversation comes Paul. In Romans 1, he describes those who do not glorify or give thanks to God. Their hearts are darkened, he says, not because of wrong actions, but because of useless thinking. They didn't want to waste mental space on understanding God and the result was worthlessness and depravity.
Paul Tripp jumps in with hard words about walking in the faith we profess. "You can praise God for his wisdom in that service on Sunday but be breaking his law on Tuesday because, at street level, you really do think you're smarter than him." How embarrassing to see that we often act as if we're smarter than God! How convicting to realize that our thinking could be so clouded!
Do I harness my mind? Do I keep tabs on my thinking and bring it back when it starts to wander off alone? Occasionally. But intentionally thinking about the things of God and fearlessly letting his thoughts become mine through diligent prayer... that takes time, humility, commitment, surrender, and obedience. "My treatment of people depends on how I think about them," says Elliot. Likewise, my responses to God depend on how I think about Him. I'm challenging myself this coming week to keep a closer watch on my thought life, to squash wrong thoughts that lead to wrong actions and to nurture the thoughts that honor God and build others up.
SATURDAY
Could a spring day be more perfect? A morning walk around our little estate, barefoot, while the air is still cool, cup of hot coffee in hand. Driving home from a consignment sale with a big pile of toddler clothes for H (15 items for less than $20!). A shortcut drive on nearly-forgotten back roads to the farm store for milk. Weeding in the sun. A walk through town with H in his stroller, with a stop at the new park bench on our town's newest sidewalk. Patio dinner with my parents, grilled chicken, curry couscous, and creme brulee for dessert. Talking until the sun is down.
These things could easily be drudgery instead of bliss. Dirty feet after a morning walk in the grass. Driving 30 minutes for second-hand-clothes. Detouring away from home to buy milk. Pulling infinite weeds in the hot sun. Walking through town - and up long hills - for a simple errand. Hosting an outdoor dinner, and cleaning up afterwards. Getting to bed way too late.
A heart that wants to be grateful, a perspective that wants to see gifts, will find joy in the commonplace. A heart of discontent will find reason after reason to be annoyed. Errands and food preparation and yardwork can be satisfying or irritating. While I admit to sometimes being of discontent heart, tonight, my grateful heart is full.
SUNDAY
Evening entertainment while I'm finalizing this blog post:
Husband reads about electricity while Son feeds Bunny from his sippy cup. And life sings.
Grateful this week for:
milk blooming up in morning coffee
green bunch of cilantro
encouragement from real heart friends
flowers in a first grade girl's hair
nail clippers
smiling daffodils
new pen
barefeet in grass
magnolia petals
grey and white cat, trotting through the yard
springtime, too early for mosquitoes
sunscreen
ice cube trays
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