Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events, and in today already walks tomorrow.
–Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Saturday Sayings – Today
Tag: patience
God’s Dishonor Roll – Part 2
Let’s look at more examples of God’s Dishonor Roll.
In Exodus chapter 2, we read that Moses killed a man with his bare hands.
God could have said, “I’m not working with this guy. He’s a hot-tempered man! He’d be a terrible leader!”
But instead, 40 years later, in chapter 3, we find that God chose Moses. He told Moses He wanted him to be the man to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. He wanted Moses to be the one to tell Pharaoh, ’Let my people go.’ Even though he killed a man and was a fugitive from justice, He still wanted him to lead His people out of bondage.”
Even Moses thought God was making a mistake.
He made excuses for not being up to the task.
He wanted God to choose someone else.
Moses felt like a failure and unqualified for the task.
He was afraid. He didn’t want to fail again. Have you ever been there?
God could have agreed and selected another person, but He didn’t give up on Moses and enabled Him to show forth God’s miraculous power.
Furthermore, God met with Moses,
this murderer,
this weak man,
and talked to him as a friend. He gave Moses His Law and Commandments, the Old Testament.
“As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the LORD spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” Exodus 33:9-11a.
Or how about David, a “man after God’s own heart”, who failed greatly: Coveting another man’s wife, he committed adultery with her and planned her husband’s death on the battlefield to cover up his sin.
God could have been done with David and removed him as king of Israel, as He had done with David’s predecessor, Saul, but God had made a promise to David and He kept it. David suffered consequences of his sin, but he continued to rule as king over Israel. He, and his descendants, continued worshipping God.
“When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.” 2 Samuel 7:12-14a
More tomorrow.
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Sunday Scriptures – Hope
We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
. . .
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:1-7,13
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The Gift of Laundry
Did a bit of pioneering work today, and it was a fun challenge.
Basically, I had to haul water in a bucket to do laundry.
Oh, it’s not like it sounds. We have city water piped into our house and a faucet near the washing machine. But the hot water tank that feeds the washer goes out, now and then, and we find ourselves without hot water, back there, at inopportune times.
If we want to shower—our bath being connected to the laundry—we can use the guest bath, which has its own hot water. In fact, that bathroom is the only hot water source in the house during down times like this.
If I want to wash dishes, since the kitchen also is connected to the laundry, and I cannot use the dishwasher, I must haul hot water, from that other bathroom, to fill the sink and do dishes by hand. I was using a one-gallon pitcher. It takes about 2 ½ gallons to fill the sink nicely. It’s okay to rinse in cold.
However, I wanted to do laundry, so I found an old plastic scrub bucket that holds 2 gallons. That cut the trips in half. At first I thought of skipping laundry until tomorrow, but later, I asked myself, “How hard can it be? Millions of women have hauled water to do laundry, and that was uphill wearing long skirts.” I could do this.
The first trip across the house with a full bucket of hot water taught me balance. Heh heh.
When I dumped it into the washer, it all trickled to the space under the perforated drum that holds the clothing. What little bit that rose above that level quickly soaked into the clothes in the washer. It would take a lot more water.
I made about 8 trips with that bucket, across tiled and laminated floors. It was hard to feel patient and joyful, until I would remember those pioneer women and their long skirts, meandering trails, rocky paths strewn with slick leaves. Most of them were hauling cold water, too, that would need heating, next.
At least mine was already hot. At least mine was across a level surface. At least I did not have to wear all those billows of clothing.
After hauling the water I was in no hurry to drain it away. So I left the lid up and soaked that clothing for a while. I’m glad I did, for I got to thinking: That water was still hot and not dirty. If I could wring out the clothes in it, I could reuse it for the next load.
A familiar-looking basket of wrung-out clothing soon stood by my feet, and the next load was chugging along before I realized I was doing laundry the way my grandmother did before she got her wringer. I watched her when I was tiny, but I’d almost lost the memory.
Eventually I washed three small loads of clothing in one small load of hot water. What would have been sixty gallons of soapy water became only 20 or so.
I saw something, during this trial, namely, why my grandmother reused the water during laundry times. Even after all her laundry was done, there were still flower beds to water, and a porch to scrub.
She remembered hauling it up hill.
Read a great story that complements this idea, here.
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Celebration
We recently went to the Garvin Gardens light display in Hot Springs, AR. It was beautiful, but outside of a brief nod to the Santa stuff, it was mostly not even about Christmas, let alone about the Nativity.
Shown here is a water feature that includes a tree transformed by night in to a blue “willow” with only light strings. Beautiful, but no cigar.
There also was a pagoda that was terribly fun to stand inside and gaze upward. It looked like being inside an explosion, I suppose, but what actual significance did it have?
Lastly, I captured a peacock made of lights. A peacock.
Oh well.
We celebrate what we do not know, I suppose.
Sunday Scriptures – Waiting
They that wait upon the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings
As an eagle.
They shall run and not grow weary;
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
Weekly Photo Challenge: Waiting
These men are waiting. They may look like they are quite active, but I know them. One is 80 years old, and the other is not far behind him. They devote their days to making improvements they will never enjoy, such as planting trees on Arbor Day.
They do enjoy much of it, though. The ability to move about and act like men, still, free of huge medical problems, they enjoy. The camaraderie with other men who care about the future of our grandkids and great-grandkids, they enjoy. Rising early and dressing for work, like the good old days, they enjoy. They are real men, more so than some of their self-professed more virile co-males on this planet, who still lie abed at 10:30 a.m.
They gave up waiting for them.
The tree around which they just finished firming the soil is also waiting. The soil, the men discovered, was moist only down to about 8 inches. On this overcast morning, everyone is hoping for rain. It does fall, 1/2 inch that night and 4 inches the next couple of days. In tree-years, it did not have to wait long.
The tree also is waiting for spring, to show off its promised beauty and to grow into the new soil around its roots. It is waiting to increase enough in size to shade the walking trail just beyond it. And someday, it will have waited until, like the men who planted it, the end will be very near and it will be ready for a position on a truck similar to the one parked in the background.
That truck also is waiting for someone who lives nearby to get going on this mid-morning. Is he lazy? Does he have the day off? Is he bound by a schedule that will not allow him to deliver his load until later?
Or is the driver also waiting? Did his wife sleep in and forget to make breakfast? Is he waiting for an important phone call before he begins his day? Is he waiting for the dryer to stop tumbling so he can finish dressing?
How inter-connected we all are! How much one slow one can affect it all!
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