Sorting through the dried clothes the other day I was matching socks in pairs. When I reached the last two socks I found they didn’t match. I went back through the socks I had put together and they were all correct. So, the next thing was to reexamine the sock pairs in the sock drawer. I pulled out every pair and examined them twice but to no avail. I could not find the missing pair. With a sigh I gave up assuming some day in the future those two socks might find their mates.
Did you ever have a day like that when things just didn’t come out quite right? Over the Christmas holidays with all of the rush and so many events to attend I found one or two days were like that. I got to the end of the day and things just didn’t match up quite right. My grandmother used to call it being discombobulated. I had to sigh and move forward but was left wondering why I was out of sorts.
Yesterday was one of those days. I was taking down all of the holiday decorations, which included the ritual of reviewing the Christmas cards we received and taking time for a longer look at the enclosed photos. When that was done I sorted out 2023’s paperwork so I could get on with 2024. By the end of the day I had done so many diverse tasks that I was beat. My head was just as weary as my bones were. I had awoken to a Christmas-like world and fell asleep in a clean house but without all the trimmings, fairy lights and candles. I definitely was out of sorts by the time my head hit the pillow – but why?
Ah, this morning I finally worked it out when I went to get my daily Bible. I had missed my devotional time with God’s Word and my time of prayer with my Father. No wonder I felt discombobulated. I worked in a frenzy all day but hadn’t taken time to get my inner self ready to work.
I know I prayed throughout the day for various people who I was thinking about. One friend has vertigo, another was in the ER with high blood pressure, yet another just delivered her fourth child and had spun like a top throughout the entire holiday season when she should have been resting.
A lot of prayers go up every day as I am moving through my work but I can’t just go around asking God to heal those I love, I need to KNOW that God can heal them and that He loves them just as He loves me.
I reinforce my relationship with my Father by understanding who God is. I really cannot make up human emotions and ideas about my Creator because I am finite in my understanding. But God is infinite – far greater than my feeble mind can grasp.
As I read my Bible I start to understand better who God is. Sometimes people refer to this as knowing the mind of Christ. Knowing the mind of Christ only comes through the Holy Spirit’s indwelling in me and His gift to me of recalling Scriptures when I need them. I can’t recall what I have not read or understood.
The point is, I need to know and realize that God is God. His characteristics are given in the Bible. I see the heart of God in the actions of God. To know any of this I have to have the words of the Bible in my mind so that when I need them most the Holy Spirit can move them to the forefront to guide me. This works in both good and bad behavior.
When I see a need in someone the words of Jesus to help the needy spring forth to urge me not to walk away but to assist that person. And, when a temptation to sin comes along and yells at me to join in, the Holy Spirit also brings to my mind the words about purity, or temperance, or thriftiness – whatever is drawing me to step away from the Lord and closer to evil. All of the words in the Bible are given to guide and to teach.
The day or two that I missed my time talking with my Father and reading His word set my life off-kilter. That is how easy it was for me to get out of sorts.
And, for the record, late in the evening of washday as I sat back in my chair to read imagine my laughter when I looked down at my stockinged feet to see I was wearing those mismatched socks!
ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.
