By the time the phone rang the third time, I figured that the responsibility of answering it had fallen squarely on my shoulders and reached to pick it up. What greeted my ears was the sound of Lydia cheerfully saying, “Hello, you have reached the S--s. This is Abigail—I mean, Lydia.” I can’t imagine where she picked up such noteworthy phone answering skills.
It seems that height was not all I was a bit short on today. The only respite I had from my own awkward irritation was the couple of hours I spent studying Psalm 37. This Psalm was an amazing call to trust Yahweh because He has everything under control. As those who have been made blameless through Christ, we are to trust in Yahweh. Trust is a heart condition, where our hearts are quiet, not stressed or anxious or fretful, waiting on Yahweh to work. It plays itself out in our lives through obedience.
*We make God our first thought every morning, our last thought at night, and the smile that lights our face in between and He gives us dreams, goals and desires that please Him.
*We turn our plans over to God. This doesn’t mean we don’t make plans. It means we keep our hearts, minds and lives fixed on Him and His word and He’ll give us good judgment. Then we make plans to our best understanding of His goals and desires and hold them loosely, allowing Him to change, shape or end any of them at any moment. And when a plan comes to fruition, we recognize that it is by God’s power, not our own.
*We seek humility and wisdom, by studying God’s law.
*We order our finances in such a way that God may bless us, by not borrowing or cheating, but instead giving and lending. And when we have little or when we have abundance, we are delighted in it, recognizing it as the care of the Father in Heaven, whose heirs we are.
*We get up again, when we stumble, through God’s grace, and continue in the path He has shown us, regardless how many times we have strayed from it.
The sad thing is, I stumbled as soon as I was called away from my studying. I hate being called away before I am finished, and there was no joy in my obedience. Nor any patience in my heart as I waited for Mom to finally prioritize making the grocery list so I could go shopping. By the time she’d gotten to it, it was eleven-thirty, and I wound up missing lunch. When I got home, the only thing left to eat was a jar of tomato soup. Honestly, it wasn’t half bad, and was more than half good. As I handed Mom the landscaping books she asked me to pick up she commented, “Goody, goody. Something more for me to do.” I wish I didn’t empathize half so well. Josiah and I headed outside shortly after to work on cleaning up the east side of the barn. We finished up after five and I dragged myself in, looking forward to a shower and clean clothes, only to be informed that Papa had called on his way home, wanting me to listen through the Jonathan Lindvall tapes and find the part about sports—tonight. Before he got home, ideally.
Supper was amazing, and I ate plateful after plateful, only to leave the table still hungry. My metabolism has finally come back to life. It was past eight when I finally found the brief section on sports—at the very end of the six tape seminar. I marked it, dragged myself up from the floor and went to take a shower.
A basket of laundry still sitting in the middle of my floor means a fifty cent fine from Mom tomorrow.
Lord, why does Thy word seem dead
Like empty rattles in my head
When I have studied, cried and read
It should be active—live—instead.
Who is the morbid enemy
That stands between Thy word and me?
I pray Thy truth would set me free
To walk in joyful trust of Thee.
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