I like the sound of the phrase "a solid foundation." As I travel around my hometown there are older neighborhoods where homeowners continue to carefully tend homes built a century and more ago so that the structures provide shelter and are home for many families over decades. In other areas, there is rebuilding and rehabilitation in struggling areas and in other places the grind of poverty and despair has left once lovely homes falling down or torn down.
Yet the foundations always tell a significant part of the story. Even when a home looks good from the outside, one look at the foundation or around the footings or walls separating from the ceiling can speak to a deeper truth.
That reminds me of myself. It is my nature to "keep on keeping on" and tend everyone else's booboo or tender heart. That is not a bad thing, unless I don't tend my own spiritual needs first. Please understand I am not saying I should "get mine first" but rather, that if I don't open myself up more fully to the love God is pouring out on me, me loving on others has a pretty short shelf life. And the result is fights where I say things I truly don't mean, failure to be available to help when it is truly needed because I have exhausted myself trying to control the small stuff, the forcing of "brilliant solutions" that turn out to be truly bad ideas.
So, today I will feed my soul intentionally. I will find a time and place to "be still" and, yes, the only place that might happen is the bathroom. I will find a healthy quote, often the Bible is a good source, and write it on a sticky note or 3x5 card to stick it where I will see it often over the next few days and think seriously and deeply about how it applies to me. I will use a Bible verse that speaks to me and take time to ask God to make that truth a part of myself in a most authentic way. I will ask for forgiveness from one of my brothers or sisters even if I think her sin is greater than my own. I will smile at and look into the eyes of someone I have often overlooked as being less important than myself.
And as I am grounded in faith, I will have the resources to reach out and love on those who God sets in my path,
Please, God, send me to be your hands and feet in the world. AMEN
Matthew 7:25 (NIV) The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
Yet the foundations always tell a significant part of the story. Even when a home looks good from the outside, one look at the foundation or around the footings or walls separating from the ceiling can speak to a deeper truth.
That reminds me of myself. It is my nature to "keep on keeping on" and tend everyone else's booboo or tender heart. That is not a bad thing, unless I don't tend my own spiritual needs first. Please understand I am not saying I should "get mine first" but rather, that if I don't open myself up more fully to the love God is pouring out on me, me loving on others has a pretty short shelf life. And the result is fights where I say things I truly don't mean, failure to be available to help when it is truly needed because I have exhausted myself trying to control the small stuff, the forcing of "brilliant solutions" that turn out to be truly bad ideas.
So, today I will feed my soul intentionally. I will find a time and place to "be still" and, yes, the only place that might happen is the bathroom. I will find a healthy quote, often the Bible is a good source, and write it on a sticky note or 3x5 card to stick it where I will see it often over the next few days and think seriously and deeply about how it applies to me. I will use a Bible verse that speaks to me and take time to ask God to make that truth a part of myself in a most authentic way. I will ask for forgiveness from one of my brothers or sisters even if I think her sin is greater than my own. I will smile at and look into the eyes of someone I have often overlooked as being less important than myself.
And as I am grounded in faith, I will have the resources to reach out and love on those who God sets in my path,
Please, God, send me to be your hands and feet in the world. AMEN
Matthew 7:25 (NIV) The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
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