"Keep Your Edge"
Hi Faith Family!
I pray you are happy and healthy today,
I spent some time edging the sidewalk yesterday. It started out a little rough. I was using an electric trimmer/edger at first. Something that looks like this:
It was working, but using lots of line. This particular sidewalk had not been edged in some time. It was overgrown and thick. Some areas of the driveway, for example, were overgrown by 6 inches of dirt and grass. I was about an hour into my project of edging, having only edged about 3 meters of the sidewalk. I had replaced the line of the edger 3 times already. I prepared myself for a long and tedious task of reclaiming the sidewalk that had been lost.
Then the neighbor asked me what I was up to, and asked me why I wasn't using a power edger--the right tool for the job. I explained that I had no such tool. To which he walked over to his porch, grabbed a power edger, and offered it to me to use. If you haven't used one, it looks something like this:
In precious little time, I was loading long lines of trimmed grass into the wheelbarrow. With the right tool, the necessary trimming was complete, and we were all enjoying a beautiful and sharp-looking sidewalk which was no longer overgrown with unwanted grass.
What trimming is necessary for you? No, I don't mean your sidewalk, nor your budget or a haircut for that matter. What needs to be cut away from your life? Take a moment to consider what bad habit, sinful attitude or action needs to be trimmed away from your life.
God inspired Matthew to think about such an edging process:
"If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to ender life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell."
--Matthew 18:8-9
Jesus shares such a strong warning with us in these verses. Have you taken them to heart? Let us be "doers of the Word and not hearers only." Give careful consideration to what is hindering your relationship to your Savior. Do you struggle with your temper, lovelessness, or selfishness? Perhaps consumption is an issue for you. Are your choices in the area of entertainment pleasing in God's sight? What bad habits have you picked up?
Take the tool God gives you and start the trimming process! God's Law cuts to the heart. God's Law points out where we have made mistakes, and the consequences of sin. God's Law calls us to confession of our sins. God calls us to depend on his stregth--renewed to us through the forgiveness of sins--to follow his will for our lives each day.
With habits that have formed some time ago, they can grow--like grass begins to take over a sidewalk. But God's powerful Word can cut away and hold such vice at bay. Lay hold of the tools God gives you and edge away!
***A note on my edging task: While I was edging away and ripping sod off the sidewalk, my family came to help. My wife and kids helped sweep and throw the pieces into the wheelbarrow. My father-in-law shoveled the sod into the wheelbarrow and wheeled the sod pieces off to the discard pile.
Significant and lasting change in behavior seldom happens without accountability. As you strive with God's strength to make changes in your life--cutting away from your life what is not pleasing to God--please consider involving at least one other brother or sister in the faith. Be accountable to them. Confess your sin to that person. Be assured of your forgiveness through Jesus. Have them ask you about your progress. Pray with that person and ask them to pray for you. I pray this is a blessing and benefit for you life and your growing relationship with your Savior.
Prayer idea: Pray for the honesty and power to look at what must be edged from your life. Ask for God's help to do it.