Verse of the Day - Proverbs 24:30-31

I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. ~ Proverbs 24:30-31 (NIV)

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It's pretty easy to see who spends time in their yards, and who doesn't, huh? Either you have a well-manicured lawn and trimmed shrubs, or you have shaggy grass full of weeds and shrubs that threaten to take over the house! Given enough neglect, a home's landscape can and will look like a foreclosure, even though people still live there! How embarrassing is that?

The HGTV show, "Curb Appeal", helps homeowners spruce up their front yards, where neglect and ill-planning have made their home very unappealing. It takes hard work to bring it back into good repair, by pulling nasty weeds, bringing wild shrubs under control, planting new greenery and flowers, getting rid of peeling paint, and taking down broken-down fences. Yeah, alot of hard work!

Neglecting one's spiritual life will produce the same results. All kinds of nasty weeds will spout up when you don't take the time to keep them in check -- jealousy, envy, bitterness, complaining, nagging, distrust. Or how about the broken-down fence of apathy and complacency, that "Who cares? Not me..." attitude?

The problem with a neglected home, either physical or spiritual, is that we get "visual tune-out". If we look at it long enough, pretty soon we look right through it, and don't see it anymore. So, just as you might get out of your car and walk up the sidewalk and look right past/through that gargantuan weed that's sprouted in the flower bed because it's been there three months, so, too, we can look right past bitterness or hatred when we don't do something about it when it crops up to begin with. As you allow spiritual weeds to grow, eventually they become part of your lifescape, and you don't even see them anymore. Yet, everyone around you can see them. They hear them in your voice, and identify them in your actions. And they're ugly.

I pray we can seek the Lord daily so that our lifescape doesn't look like a sickly foreclosure. God desires us to be full of His beauty -- love, kindness, forgiveness, patience, generosity, peace. I'm sure we all desire this lifescape for ourselves, right? But it doesn't come automatically, just because we desire it. It takes work -- hard work! It takes constant attention to what springs up out of our hearts and minds (which, btw, will eventually come out of our mouths). Are they flowering plants, or nasty weeds? If you see a nasty weed, by golly, get rid of it quick, before its roots grow deep and wide! And be willing to listen to the counsel of God and others when they identify weeds and broken-down fences -- don't get mad, get busy! Take their words in love, and do something about it . . . be in prayer, absorb God's word, ask for clear spiritual vision where you've had "visual tune-out".

Don't let your spiritual house look like a foreclosure -- go to God for His "curb appeal". He will give you the tools, the materials and the motivation you need to be a person that reflects His character, a person that had godly "curb appeal"!

Love,
Joelene