Lessons From A Junk Drawer
Last spring, I found a tape measuring on the floor, so I
picked it up and went to put it away in our junk drawer. I couldn’t get the
drawer open let alone put something else in it. That experience spoke to me as
a metaphor for my life. My life—any life—is like a drawer: it will only hold so
much. And choices are made almost daily about what goes in and what comes out
and how it gets arranged. While the decisions about what is in the junk drawer
are not mine alone, it is still up to me and the others in my family to work
together to see that it does not become so full that it can’t be opened and
thus rendered useless.
Last spring I began blogging daily during Lent, and when
Lent was over, I stopped completely. It was one of the things I stopped doing
because I needed to sort out my life to decide what was going to be in and what
was going to be out. To tell you the truth, I’m still in that process, I have
decided that I still want to blog, but this time I’m committing to doing so
only once a week. If time allows and I have something to say, I might do it
more frequently, but I will do it at least once a week.
However, blogging is just one piece of a bigger picture. For
me, fall always marks a new beginning. At this time of year, I think about the
commitments I am going to make. You might say that it’s a time to dump out the
contents of the drawer of my life to reflect on and then arrange the way that
will help me live the life I long for and believe with all my heart Christ has
already acquired for me through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The
way I am doing that is by asking myself what are the practices, relationships,
and experiences that will be a means of offering myself to God so that he do
for me what I cannot do for myself?
This is a very individual endeavor. It takes times, thought,
prayer. A key word is intention. Change will happen in my life. Time will pass.
The only question is whether that change will result in growth or that the time
that goes by will bring me closer to the Lord I love and whether I am becoming
a more loving person as he desires me to be.
To be honest, I am so aware of ways that I need to change
and probably more aware than ever of my inability to change myself. But I am
hopeful. Not because of me. Not because of what I am planning to do in these
coming months. But because of Christ and his purposes in my life and the power
of his Spirit working in and through me and all who trust him. “I am confident
of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion
by the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippian 1:6). That is a truth I believe and am
choosing to live into.
No comments:
Post a Comment