I Will Stop Procrastinating Tomorrow

This entire weekend, starting tonight, I celebrate Independence Day by being a slave to the needs of our dog. Honeybun is entered in her first AKC Agility trial and since it is right here in our own city thus no hotel costs incurred, we had to do it. I am eyeing the schedule and realizing that I have to have our canine crew there and ready to go with crates, food bribes, proper collars, leashes and papers, water, and folding chairs by 7 a.m. on the mornings following evenings that are designed to blast the eardrums out of every person on the planet. Not only will the fireworks prevent me from sleeping, but our dogs go beserk every 4th of July weekend. I am not sure what my brain was up to when I signed on for this Agility thing, but it sure wasn't doing what God designed it to do. Nonetheless, the money is paid and we will make the best of it.

With my health still tenuous, I knew that yesterday needed to be a calm and restful day. Therefore, I spent the morning looking at the clutter that has recently requested I build an addition on the house so it could collect more comfortably. My Bible study was about doing what you must do NOW when the spirit prompts. So I began to pull the clutter out of one cabinet. And then I began crying and put the clutter back in the cabinet. The spirit began kicking me as I was not listening as carefully as I should have been.
"I warn you, dear one," it said, because it was still in the gentle voice stage of convicting my soul, "If you leave this mess inside, it will only get bigger."
"I cannot do this!" I cried,"It is too much! I have no place else to put it but I can't get rid of it! You know as soon as I dispose of this old lantern we will have a power outage and need it!"
"It is broken," said the Spirit, "With dangerous battery corrosion over all the terminals."
I had to admit the Spirit, as usual, was correct. I threw the lantern out.
And then I found a paper I had been searching for. I also found a gift I had given Arvo two years ago, a wireless bicycle odometer that he had never installed on his bike.
My thrifty mind recognized I could rewrap this and give it to him for his birthday again as it is likely he had forgotten I had given it to him once before.
By now, I was exhausted. One shelf was clean. If I do a shelf a day, I will finish decluttering in exactly 6,798 years.

So dusting myself off, Asherel and I headed off to scout out the park on Lake Wylie where our DI team will be having our year end party. Some people might think what I was doing was avoiding the clutter monster at home, but it is clear that I had to go make sure the park would have adequate facilities for the party, such as grass and blue sky. We launched our kayaks and paddled over to our favorite little island where Asherel sat in the water and threw cheerios to the fish that swarmed around her. My little island of peace was somewhat crowded with images of clutter choking and thrashing me.

Sadly, when I came home, the clutter had not gotten up and walked away. You certainly don't need a doctorate in theology to figure out what God was telling me this time. Pretty much any bad thing you can name collects like the clutter in my house unless I deal with it- sin, pride, anger, doubt, laziness, self-indulgence.....etc. etc. etc....(even the etc.s collect.....) And they grow until it feels like I can never get out from under their effects. I have to take action. God may forgive me, and indeed He does, but He still expects me to move that stuff in the right direction.
Today, I will clean out shelf #2.

2 Samuel 22- selected verses
⁶ The cords of the grave ^b]">[b] coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.

⁷ In my distress I called to the LORD;
I called out to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came to his ears.

¹⁷ "He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
²¹ "The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.