Wordless Wednesday

I get knocked down

There is a gremlin in my throat and his name is Streptosaurus.

Photo by Umanoide on Unsplash

He's kept me in bed for three days and demanded a light diet of soup and smoothies.

He growls when I talk and lashes out when I swallow.

He keeps me KO'd for 14 hours a day.

I'm starting to forget what the world beyond my bed is like.

But God bless Monday morning, the reopening of the doctor's office, the rapid strep test, and the drive-thru pharmacy.

Let the penicillin v. Streptosaurus fight to the death begin.

Photo by Samuel Scrimshaw on Unsplash

We always do what we believe

"5" pancake, followed by epic birthday present/project. 

This week I'm reading Psalm 119.

Two verses in the same stanza particularly struck me as connected.

I believe in Your commandments.

With all my heart I will observe Your precepts.

Psalm 119:66, 69

I know the Bible often reiterates the same idea in two different ways within a couplet.  So this makes sense:  if you believe in the commandments, you will naturally do them.  

This thought expanded to:  we always do what we believe in.

I homeschool because I believe in it.


I feed us nutritious stuff because I believe it makes our bodies healthy.


I certainly go to church because I believe there's a God and He's worth worshipping.

Everything we do, in fact, can be traced back to, and reveals, our beliefs.

This week, for example, we dug up a major section of our yard by hand and hired two dump trucks to create a massive sand pit--because we believe it will give our children hours of fun.

[We also believe, quite optimistically, that the sand tracked into our house will not drive us straight to clinical insanity.]

Today I ate {a lot of} chocolate cake because I believed it would make me happy and in fact my happiness would be severely curtailed without it.


I took Jeddy to the orthodontist because I believe braces are worth the pain and the cost for a lovely set of straight teeth.


I entered the orthodontist's office in my GPS without looking at the address because I believed I had enough phone battery to complete the trip and would therefore not get lost.


(Sometimes our beliefs turn out to be erroneous.)

What action point or life change will come about from these reflections, I do not know.

But maybe the next time I'm baffled by my behavior {why did I eat All The Cake?}, I'll at least get one step further by realizing that what we do with all our heart, we first believed in.

Your testimonies are wonderful;

Therefore my soul observes them.

Psalm 119:129

Camping

We went camping.

You gotta admit, Jim Gaffigan has got a point or nine.

I'm surprised we can still get people to camp.  "Hey, wanna burn a couple of vacation days sleeping on the ground outside?...You'll wake up freezing covered in a rash!"  All right, I'll go.  

My wife always brings up, "Camping's a tradition in my family."  Hey, it was a tradition in everyone's family until we came up with the HOUSE.

...You know who's a happy camper?  The guy leaving the campsite.  He's the happiest camper.  He gets to take a shower.

... It's not just serial killers; there's bears out there...Why are we even camping where there's wild animals?  That wouldn't be a selling point for anything else.  "Oh, it's a beautiful golf course.  Plus, around the ninth hole there's a pack of wolves!"

 That doesn't even address my other fears of ticks, burns, and children eating things they found on the ground.

It's not that I dislike camping.  I have no problem skipping a shower or two, getting twigs in my hair, unplugging, etc.


It's more the magnifying effect it has on my maternal anxieties.

Some months ago our pastor preached on Philippians 4:6:  "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer..."  In the sermon, he named three "species of anxiety":


(1) An honorable burden to be carried, as Paul's anxiety for the infant churches, or a mother's anxiety to keep her children unpoisoned;


(2) A medical condition for which to seek proper treatment (been there, doing that); and


(3) A sin of which to repent.

Which species of anxiety does camping trigger in me?


The same number as the insect and arachnid species that commune with us while we eat our camp breakfast.


All of them.

Warring with sin

I quoted this John Piper sermon in a recent post, but it's so good it deserves another mention.  File this under "a good word for the Christian discouraged by his/her sin."

One of the ways that the Spirit testifies--gives you evidence--that you are a child of God is that He leads you into war against your sin...  

So, you wanna know if you're a child of God this morning?...  

Ask, have I made peace with sin in my life?

Am I at home with it?

And am I content with it?

And do I get along with it just fine?  

Or, have I been led by the Spirit to make war on it so that day by day I am putting to death the deeds of the body?  

That's how you can know if you're a child of God:  how do you feel about the sin in your life?

Do you hate it and make war on it?  Or do you like it and make peace with it?