Month: July 2012

Be ♥ Ready

I’ve entitled today’s post: Be ♥ Ready because I think we often forget that that’s a calling we have — as believers, as mothers, as family to:  be ready!  The Lord has given us different mandates to be ready… to make ourselves ready.

Readiness will bring gladness and rejoicing!  “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.” –Revelation 19.7
And though, we may not know when that day will come, we do know that it will come.  We are commanded:  “Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.”  –Luke 12.40

We have opportunity, while it is called today, to seek the Lord, to know Him and make Him known.  We have opportunity to study, to learn, to yield, to obey, to repent and do what He’s designed and called us to do.  And as we “work out our salvation” we will be growing in grace from glory to glory.

Do you have hope?  Do you have joy?  Do you have a ready answer?

Maybe you’ve thought long about this and do have hope and joy and a ready answer — praise the Lord if you do.  But maybe you’re not sure of the hope in you… maybe you’ve not entertained this question literally or in your mind.  Today would be a good day to sit down and write out the hope that’s in you.  Maybe your walk with the Lord is young… maybe you’ve not experienced questions of others or haven’t ever articulated your faith.  I’d say it’s very important to collect your thoughts, to write out your testimony, to make sure your faith, as it were.

In 1Peter 3.15 we read: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”

Many think it’s hard to witness or articulate to others who Jesus is or what Jesus has done… but it’s really very simple… it’s as simple as giving an account of where you were and where you are today and where you’ll spend eternity.  If we run out of things to share, the simplest thing to remember is to tell about Jesus.  Learn to love to tell the story of what Jesus has done for you, His love and His atoning sacrifice.  Some accounts are as simple as: whereas I was born blind, now I see.

A plane had engine trouble and crashed near our home over the weekend and while the pilot did sustain some injuries, they did not prevent him from communicating as he was being pulled from the wreckage.

He was so lucky, many were saying as they surveyed the damage.  Many asked if we feared having our home in such a location and on and on the questions and statements flowed.  At the time, and surely at the end of the day, all I  could continually consider was the matter of being ready… ready to do whatever the Lord calls us to do and ready to meet Him face to Face.  Surely, early that morning, that pilot did not think:  Hmmm, today I’m going to have a brush with death. And we certainly didn’t think, Hmmmm, this morning, we’re going to watch a plane go down.

But every day, things come up, things happen that should be reminders to us to be ready… to be ready to enter our eternal home, be ready to serve another, be ready to give a witness of what the Lord has done for us.   For even a portion of what the Lord has done for us could not be told.

Hebrews 9.27  “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”

Be ready… be ready to run, be ready to answer, be ready to give, be ready to serve… be ready to proclaim.   You never know what a day may bring… and were you to know that today would be your last, would you be ready to meet the Lord?

Untangling the wwWeb – part two

This is “part two” of the previous post by the same name — you can read it here.  The reason I’ve entitled this and the previous post: Untangling the wwWeb is bcz it truly is a  tangling or entangling web.  Now, what I hope is understood here is that the web or internet or electronic communication is not the enemy — it’s not all bad.  In fact, I readily admit that it’s a profoundly invaluable tool.  But tools are just that: tools.  We utilize tools — and the right tools help us accomplish tasks much more efficiently than were we to not have them.  Tools misused or used in the wrong hands are actually dangerous.   We can think of the internet (or iPhones, smart phones or any other communication device) as a tool — a very useful tool if used properly.   Unplanned or unbridled internet use is dangerous and should, from here on, be evaluated as a properly or improperly used tool.

Here’s an idea for you.  Set the timer for 20 minutes right now or next time you use your computer (or iPhone or whatever).  Bing! the timer will ring and you’ll be shocked just how fast twenty minutes passes!  Now, for amplification, set the timer for that same amount of time before embarking on some task you don’t like doing.  You’ll be shocked how slowly twenty minutes passes!  That little exercise is to give you an idea just how much time you’ve  wasted spent invested online.   You can never get that time back.  Ever again.

In order to untangle from the web — and it is, in intensity and enormity, a world. wide. web. — I believe you must (in addition to answering those questions in “part one” of this post) admit you’re tangled in it (if you are) and then do some fessing up to yourself, to your husband, to your children.  Your fessing up may extend beyond your home.  Think back on days gone by… how were they really spent?  How much time did/do you really spend online? And, as with all addiction recovery, a course or a plan of action and accountability should be — read:  must be — established.   A lack of a plan is a plan to fail and disregarding accountability is a sure plan to cheat yourself.

You may clean the room, clean the space in your life that the net once fully occupied, but unless you fill that space with plans, purposes, activities and measurable accomplishments, that space will be filled with demons of a worse kind.   Those demons might be resentment, regret, shame, anger, self-pity, bitterness, pride, anxiety, frustration, woeful longing and on and on.  Those demons travel in a pack.

Get busy and stay busy.  Look well to the ways of your household and do not eat the bread of idleness.

Wherever you are, be fully there.  Whatever you’re doing, be fully doing it.  Whoever you’re talking with, be fully engaged in conversation.  It may shock you how disconnected you’ve been.  It may shock them how distracted you were and now aren’t! It may be weird for them–  and you — to be doing all the stuff you delegated (so you could be freed up to do all that important good stuff on the internet).  Watch out for personal  resentment if you’re not appreciated for all your hard work.  Determine to live joyfully in your home.  Purpose to change your tomorrows since you cannot do a single thing to change the yesterdays.  You can change — your days can change and in doing so, you’ll be investing in your tomorrows.

Set about accomplishing the things you’ve set aside… maybe neglected.  You know, the stuff you used to do before the the tangled wwWeb got you and your time all wrapped up.  As you do things, you’ll experience delightful appreciation for personal growth and accomplishment — interest and investment in your home and family once again.  You’ll be living all those pictures you’ve been dreaming about.  Try new things.  You sleep better knowing that the greater satisfaction comes in actually doing and accomplishing instead of just observing; reading about things other women seem to be doing or seeing pictures of all that all those other mothers seem to be accomplishing.  Keep in mind each day that the wise woman builds her house but the foolish plucks it down with her own hands.

In time you’ll establish a balance of best vs. good… literal vs. virtual… wise vs. foolish or not-so-wise time investment.  You’ll begin seeing or will begin doing all the things you knew deep down you wanted to do/you should be doing… but couldn’t do bcz you were all tangled up viewing a screen.  Drinking another cup of coffee.

♥ may you always be blessed.

Untangling the wwWeb

Untangling from an internet bound life is sort of like limiting coffee consumption (but worse. so much worse). You might not even know you’re addicted to caffeine until you attempt to go without it for a day — or, okay, a morning without it.  And then, if you’re addicted, you know it. You really know it.  Your pounding headache constantly reminds you.

It’s hard.  It’s actually painful — very painful — at first… and then, enduring the pain, you see a few days pass and the pain diminishes.   You may have given up or reduced your coffee consumption but the pull is always there… especially when you catch a whiff of the nearly intoxicating aroma of great coffee.

In time, you learn to drink a cup of coffee and be satisfied.  If you’ve been a long time coffee drinker — the kind that can’t live without coffee — it may take time — lots of time — before you can trust yourself to keep within a predetermined limited indulgence.

Maybe your deal’s not coffee or chocolate or any butter-sugar-flour combination food.  Maybe your deal’s just the internet… maybe, like me, you’ve found your life wrapped up in a tangled mess of lost time, neglected duties, distracted thoughts, misunderstandings and forgotten purpose.   In a way, it doesn’t really matter what had (or has) you distracted and off course — like I’ve said many times, even good things are the enemy of best things.  So if you (believe me, I’ve been there, been here, and fully understand) have found yourself all caught up in all the good things — the very good things of the internet — you may need to take a step back and ask yourself some hard questions.  Well, the questions aren’t hard at all, it’s the truth — or facing it — that’s the hard part.

I sincerely offer this baker’s dozen following questions… your answers may be helpful or insightful to you and may prompt you to consider the need re-chart your course.

1.  Have I left my first Love?
2. Am I doing the things I am responsible, gifted, supposed to be doing?
3. Am I accomplishing the goals and plans I have (or had) for my home/marriage/motherhood?
4. Would my husband be pleased with how I have spent the hours of each day/week?
5. Do I ignore that inner prompting to get busy with my responsibilities?
6. Do I make excuses for how important my computer related activities are?
7. Would I be willing to list some things that have obviously gone by the wayside bcz I’ve been distracted on the computer?
8. Have I heard negative comments about the amount of time I spend online?
9. Can I go a day without checking into Facebook, email, blogging, reading blogs or looking at Pinteresting things?
10. Do you frequently say the meaningless phrases, Just a minute or Just a sec?
11.  Do you feel you have a right to not be interrupted while using, browsing, writing, being entertained on the computer?
12. Do you prefer to miss activities, visits, etc., so you don’t have to miss being online?
13.  And finally, does a power outage send you into a frenzied panic?

All those questions weren’t meant to be glib or even entertaining — they’re serious questions to prompt serious introspection and reflection and hopefully give some inspiration for changing your tomorrows.