Category: routine

Repent and Believe the Gospel Again

This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
(1 Corinthians 13:4 J.B. Phillips)
 
 
 
Shake off your routines like bedcovers

Plant your feet on the ground
for the journey

Clear your eyes of sleep

Take in the sight of a new day
for loving your God

(Rachel G. Hackenberg)

 

I like my routines.  I get up every morning.  I brew a cup of coffee to sip and warm my hands, while I read my devotions. Then I find my pen and write in my journal.

In my journal, I start out with recording the day, the date, the time and the place.  I make some observation about how I feel or record something from the day before that stood out as important.  

And for Lent, I am writing love letters to God, which as I’ve said isn’t as easy as it sounds.


Last week as Lent began I received the ashes on my forehead. The words spoken that day jolted me.

 

And this week, the words, “Repent and believe the gospel,” continue to confront me.

 

I was expecting “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” and instead I was startled by the word, “Repent!” 

And the charge to “Believe the gospel,” initiated a spiritual crisis. Do I really believe the gospel? What does it mean to believe the gospel? Or more accurately, what would my life look like if I took God at His word that I am redeemed and forgiven?

Maybe I wouldn’t reach for the TV remote as often. Maybe I wouldn’t doubt God’s love. Maybe I would be more gracious towards those who disappoint me. Maybe I could stop being so angry. (I made the rash decision to give up anger for Lent. It’s not going so well. I need to get rid of it, but that’s my dilemma, I tend to hoard anger.)
 
Maybe, just, maybe I would get out of bed and greet each new day with joy because Jesus lives and loves!
 
Linking up with:
 
 

 


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5 Fives Friday

 
The years of our life are seventy,

or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?

 
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.


(Psalm 90:10-14 ESV)



Five is not a magical number. It is mentioned in Scripture mostly to mark the amount or age of someone…like sixty-five. For some reason we are fascinated by numbers. People will say certain numbers have biblical significance, and they are correct because certain numbers are repetitive in the history of Israel and even into the New Testament. Twelve tribes, twelve disciples, you get the idea.

But five is not like that. It’s an odd number. However, I like the sound of “5 Fives Friday” and I do have a practical point to my rambling if you can bear with me.

Last week, I was running at a local park, and I was getting tired of running, so I started a cadence count in my head: “1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4…etc.” That motivational counting soon became boring, so I added a 5. “1-2-3-4-

5… POW!

I got a little surge of power, so I kept counting to five and I kept running and I finished my workout. Cool!

While counting my thoughts lighted onto another idea for getting my to-do list done. Why not list 5 Fives each day and see how much I accomplish on the list? Then I trimmed my goal back to why not just do it once a week and work my way up to 5 days a week. So I have been listing my 5 Fives at least once a week now for the past week. And it works. One time I even listed a sixth 5.

So here’s the challenge: Make a List a of 5 Fives and Do Them! Feel free to comment on this post to let us know how it goes.

Here’s my list for today:

1. Read 5 pages in the Bible.
2. Drink 5 glasses of water.
3. Take 5 minutes to unload the dishwasher.
4. List 5 gratitudes.
5. Count to 5 before I answer a question. (Remember counting engages the rational side of our brains!)

High five! See you next week.

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Routine: The Travelled Way

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same
the Lord’s name is to be praised.
Psalm 113:3 KJV

The Intuition Diaries

Routines were to be left behind, while we vacationed on Lake Michigan. Or so we thought.  We found out at the beginning of our trip that routines are important whether we were on vacation or not. Just like the rising and setting of the sun, routines have their purposes. Every time we take the boat out, we follow a checklist. Read more if you want to hear how we neglected a crucial routine, but were graced with GRACE!

 

At the beginning of July, we drove away from St. Louis, towing our boat, the Intuition. We arrived late afternoon to our destination just north of Chicago on the western shore of the lake. We checked in with the marina and proceeded to get the boat ready for our adventure of following a clockwise circuit around the shores of Lake Michigan.

We were out of our normal routine. Les was thinking about getting the extra kicker motor on the back of the boat. (This motor is our backup if the main engine fails.) I was thinking about how to arrange the extra food and other items inside the boat, so we wouldn’t be tripping over stuff for the next few weeks. It took about an hour to get everything transferred to the boat, so we were pleased with our efficiency.

Next stop—back the boat down the ramp and find our boat slip. We have a checklist for this procedure, but for some reason neither one of us pulled it out. Familiarity and past successes at this mundane part of boating became an embarrassing oversight.

Before heading out to sea, it is prudent to make sure the engine fires up and everything is working properly. So we took our usual steps (sort of) and tried the engine. NOTHING! Was the battery dead? Why is the bilge pump running? Did the fridge drain the battery on the road trip here? We were baffled.

We went back to the bilge pump question. Why was it running? Its purpose is to bail water from the cockpit of the boat or any water that is in the bottom of the boat. Under my breath, I was praying for wisdom. We opened the floor hatch and noted  water in the bottom of the boat, which the pump was dutifully offloading. All of a sudden, we remembered…the plug…did anyone put the plug in before we entered the water!? Nope, we totally skipped that part of the checklist. We scrambled and pulled the boat back on the trailer, let the water drain. Then promptly put the plug in.

The grace part: In our rush to get to our destination (the slip at the marina); I had knocked the throttle out of neutral. The engine only starts in neutral. The checklist states: “Check to make sure the throttle is in neutral position before starting the engine.” If the engine had started, we would have had a more serious problem on our hands, like how to get a sinking boat out of the harbor.

After figuring out the plug problem, we consulted the checklist, which solved the engine failure. I put the boat back into neutral, and the engine fired up immediately. What did we learn? We learned to trust the routine and always look at the checklist. After our humiliation subsided, we laughed at ourselves and thanked God for watching out for us in our foolishness.

Sunday Morning Sunrise

North Point Marina, Winthrop Harbor, IL 8.10.2012

 

 
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