Post Sunday May 17 2009

“…I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.” Psalm 101:2

I often wonder how sometimes others cannot see and hear what is going on right before their eyes and then it dawns on me, wow, how pathetic am I. Why am I looking at what they can’t see and hear when the fact is there are probably things I can’t see and hear in my own life that someone else is probably blogging about right now! People have spoken to me from time to time about things or about behaviors in my life and I’ve just shrugged it off. My heart had simply grown cold or hardened to certain things in my life as I’m sure the hearts of others have in the past and in the present as well. So what do I hear and see?

For me as I sit in my home and put my children to bed, converse with my wife, pick up the clutter, move the dishes on the counter into the dishwasher, sweep the never ending trail of crumbs off the dining room table and floor leading to the kitchen, open the mail (aka the bills) and move that into the to be paid pile and then begin to unwind, I then and only then can begin to hear the sounds of my home. You know those sounds, they echo within your mind. Some of those sounds bring a soft smile to your face. Today there were actually quite a few good ones, my son’s first words to me when I picked him up from school, I can’t repeat them to you because it was a manly conversation but the echo of that conversation is doing more than make me smile, I’m laughing all by myself! Madison’s softball game tonight, she played the best I’ve ever seen her play and the coach awarded her the game ball, that echo is a proud smile. Then my oldest called to me and said Dad you’ve got to see my room. She had rearranged it for the 17th time so far this year and we laughed together as we joked about how long this arrangement is going to last, that is a good echo as well. Nicole had a great idea for spicing up the announcements on Sundays in the future. This brought about a grateful smile that I have a wife that wants to work alongside of me. I enjoy reflecting on those sounds from my home.

I wish those were the only sounds I heard though. I can hear my annoyed voice toward my wife and kids as I anxiously desired to get back to work because I have not accomplished nearly what I set out to accomplish today. That echo is an impatient and unkind one, which violates two areas in which love is supposed to be (see 1 Corinthians 13). There is that worry echo that was clearly in my voice when I responded to one of my wife’s questions today. There was no reason for a worried answer from me, a few more caring questions and a brief moment of thought and my answer could have been presented with confidence instead of worry. That is a wimpy echo that comes back to me, I really don’t like those wimpy echoes, they mock who God has called me to be.

The psalmist’s desire (King David) was that he would walk about his house with a perfect heart. When you see the word walk in the Bible in this sort of context he is not talking about simply walking with two legs. The word walk here is live, do life, behave, that kind of walk. Read the whole verse again this time in the New Living Translation:

Psalm 101:2 “I will be careful to live a blameless life — when will you come to my aid? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.”

We talked yesterday about faith and the home. As I sit here in my home what is going on in it? What am I possibly not seeing or hearing? Am I doing all I can to be careful to live a blameless life (not pathetic nothingness, but blameless there is difference!)? Am I daily calling on God to come to my aid? Am I leading a life of integrity in my own home? Do I have a plan? Do I have a vision for my home? Where did I get that plan and vision? Do I care where I got it?

What is reflecting off your TVs and computers when everyone is asleep? What conversations are you having on the phone or over coffee at your tables and couches? Is the sun about to go down on your anger? Are you stressed about something and you haven’t turned it over to God yet? What is going on in your home? What is being breathed out of it? What are the sounds that you hear right now? Can I hear God in my home? Would a stranger know that God is head of my house not because I have to tell the stranger, but because the stranger is able to tell me?

Let God know this week that He has full access to your life and your homes.

pastor e