It's amazing how behind I have fallen on Household chores over the past few year. Yeah I definitely mean not days, not months but years. For example I cleaned the refrigerator yesterday and my ketchup expired in . . . drum roll please . . . July of 2011!!! In fact practical all my condiments, excluding the Franks Red Hot Sauce that I put on everything, expired years ago. Thankfully I have not killed anyone with old salad dressing or mutant relish.
I am amazed at how much there is to do around a small apartment inhabited only by myself and an adorable orange cat. Over the past few years I've struggle to keep up with all that should be done in the world of household management. That's one part because I spend a lot of time running from place to place. Then another because I just haven't been motivated when I do get come home after long days and deep clean like a maniac.
So now that I do have time I have to admit that I am enjoying the task of restoring order from chaos. I like doing things that have a definite end. Where you can take a step back and look across the work and say I did that today. Granted something like cleaning my own fridge or vacuuming the floor aren't great works that will alter mankind's history. Those aren't jobs that will never need to be done again but for now at least they are complete and that's something.
There can be joy in work. Is there toil in it yes, but there should be joy too. I think sometimes about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden before sin. It wasn't like they just lounged around the place working on their tans, God gave them work. They had the work of tending the garden and we know Adam also had the task of naming all the animals. Talk about a long day!!! How would you feel looking at a platypus and wondering what in tarnation do I call this little guy? The difference was without sin work was a delight because it was simply glorifying God by keeping His commands.
I truly believe that work even after the fall can still be a delight. I am seeking ways to do that now without an official job. To do that I am specifically seeking to obey the command "Whatever you do in word or deed do all to the glory of God" I struggled a lot with that in the corporate setting because I didn't have time to really think about the Lord and didn't do a good job keeping Him as my focus in the midst of the tasks I had there. At home I have been able to renew that focus, to spend time meditating on Him and his word. I have also had to trust more fully that He is able to guide me, protect me and supply the needs I have from His abundance.
I am thankful to have time to catch-up to do work that I have put off for quite sometime and to learn to delight in it. Not to find joy in the work because of a paycheck or because the work itself is glorious but because its an opportunity to do something for His glory.
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