First off, the answer to last week's question - 3500 (according to Mythbusters).
Yesterday I spent a few hours, as I do every week, mowing and trimming my yard. Plus, I had a few other chores that I came up with to make sure the lawn was looking swell. After I was finished though, one thing was clear; my front yard looked twice as good as the back yard. Because of the abudance of shade and my preference to keep up the front more than the back (expecially with trimming), the back yard as suffered a bit. Fungus has attacked the lawn in the back leaving unsightly brown spots and weeds have crept up along the back fence. But I continue to do just enough with the back yard since I know that less people will see it, and frankly, I am tired of keeping up with it.
It really made me think about our spiritual lives. We all have the areas that are easier to take care of and more visible. Maybe our work performance or our relationship with our friends. Then, there are the things that require more attention and are tougher to keep up with; our family life, our daily time with God, and managing our finances properly. These things will only be seen by a few so instead of doing our best, we are tempted to just get by with the minimum.
The cost of neglegance to our spiritual and home life is much greater, of course, then neglecting our back yard. But I have to say that it is just as easy for us to allow this pattern to develop. If we allow things to go for too long, the results can be disasterous. Jesus told the Pharisees that they were "white washed tombs." That is, they were shiny clean on the outside, but dead on the inside. We should do all we can to avoid this label.
We are usually neglecting something in our spiritual and family life. The only question is, what are you going to do about it? I have recently been asking myself that and doing the hard clean up work necessary to make sure the outside and inside (or front and back yard if you like) match up. The time, energy, and emotion aren't easy to spend, but the price is worth paying if you want your whole life in God's hands.
1 comment:
I read your blog for the first time today and am really impressed. It is refreshing to get your insight on daily occurences. I too ignore my back yard in preference of my front yard but never connected it to spirituality. Great insight!
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