April 22, 2010

Reminder

I schedule all my activities on a big desk calendar that hangs on the inside of my pantry door. When I look at the coming week I often fire off a prayer, “Lord you’re just going to have help get me through this.” And He does. I recently had to look back on one of the filed calendar pages to see what I did and when it was done. Wow! It was a good reminder for me to see just how busy the Lord has been in coming to my rescue. While my calendar was a good way to jog my memory, Paul uses a different approach with the Philippians. “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.” (Phil 3:1 NIV)

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----Memory is a key element of industry. I mean industry in its broadest terms, everything from constructing intelligence and wisdom from knowledge, to making things from materials, to brewing feelings from life. Everything you do is industry. Without memory we could do nothing, and the better our memories are, the better our industry is. So we use multitudes of tools for maintaining our memories. Certainly, we use calendars to remind us of what was important enough yesterday to schedule for tomorrow, so that our ongoing projects can survive the currents of unrelated interests and emotions constantly beckoning our attention. We wear rings as reminders of the attention owed our spice (if the plural of mouse is mice why should not the plural of spouse be spice?) Pictures, artwork, and even clothing styles tow attitudes and feelings owed to friends and community along the days flowing through our lives. And this is much of why I became so upset with XYZ Church’s refusal to serve the old hymns that were tools for drawing to mind the emotions, feelings, and thoughts of godly devotion built over the years into many hearts and minds. Even the friends we have remind us of pathways extending throughout the heart and mind and set us upon those treks. But the most useful tool, the most important tool, is the one to which you alluded.
-----We have no physical object that is God for viewing. There is no seeing a face everyday that draws Him onto our hearts. The Word reminds us to do everything we do kindly, gently, and peaceably with forbearance and forgiveness. For in as much as the actions and attitudes of our lives are reminders to others, they are industrious in what builds into their lives. So they are much of the artwork God uses to display His face for the world to see through heart and mind. Like we can not escape gravity, neither can we escape this spiritual principle. What we are will inevitably remind people of either good or evil according to how well we do good to all men.

Love you all,
Steve Corey