Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)
Yard Work
Now that warmer weather has come many people are getting outside and doing yard work. People are tending to their flower and vegetable gardens, putting in new shrubbery and other plants, and getting to those outdoor chores that they couldn't get to over the winter. I enjoy getting outside and doing work around the yard. After a long day's work of mowing the grass, pulling weeds, raking, and trimming bushes I find great satisfaction in admiring my yard. It may not look as fantastic as a professionally landscaped yard, but I have the pleasure of turning an untended, overgrown, and weedy yard into a nicely trimmed and clean yard. Some people feel that their yards are a reflection of themselves. Part of their identity is wrapped up in the appearance of their yard. They want their yards to reflect to the world that they are people who care about their appearance. This kind of attitude can be good. We should care about our appearance. If we are sloppy in our appearance, then maybe we are sloppy in other areas of our life, but not everyone has the time to make yard work a priority. And sometimes people get their priorities mixed up. I know people who are constantly working in their yards--tending to their flowers, watering their plants, and pulling weeds; yet they do not tend to their inner gardens. They do not water their soul with the word of God, and they have allowed weeds of sin to grow in their heart and mind. Sometimes we get so busy with fixing up the external, physical, and temporal aspects of our life that we neglect the inner, spiritual, and eternal aspects of life. We consider our neighbor's opinions of our yard more important than God's opinion of our hearts. I wonder how much more time and effort we would spend on making our inner person more beautiful if our friends and neighbors could see what we look like on the inside? This summer as we spend time making our house and yard look nice, let's also recommit ourselves to working on our inner life. Let's try to get our priorities in line with true biblical priorities. As Paul says,Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers (1 Timothy 4:7-10).1Tending to my heart, Pastor Steve May 18, 2007
Footnotes 1 1 Timothy 4:7-10, NASB (New American Standard Bible). Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.
Find more afterthoughts at Mas Pensamientos
(more afterthoughts)
Return to Home Page of trinityteaneck.org