The Voices in my Head

Ok, this is the last time I’m telling the story. Everyone wants to know what happened to my eye. It looks like Trish slugged me. While innocent of that, I was trying to fix the garage door for her though. I noticed that one of the wheels was off track, but I needed to remove a part in order to correct the problem. Enter the voice in my head. It said, “Don’t do this alone…the part is attached to the spring…dangerous…get someone to help you keep the tension off the spring.” I did not listen to the voice; I thought I could do it myself. While I did remove most of the tension on the spring, once loose, the part flew out of my hands, smacked me right at the eyebrow, and left a gash. No stitches needed, but I did do some impressive bleeding. The swelling has gone down, but the blood has pooled into a nice bruise.

Last Sunday, we saw Jesus’ example in prayer. If the perfect human of all time needed to spend time in prayer, how much more do we? When we pray, we express our dependence on God. But like me and the garage door, we want to do it ourselves. By not praying, we show our arrogance. Asking, praying, and depending on God is a mark of maturity. And with garage doors, it’s less painful. We have this great gift of prayer available to us to help us in times of temptation, need, service, pain, and even in success. I encourage you to read the first part of Luke 11 for more insight directly from Jesus on prayer.

Repent

I’ve been thinking about light switch and outlet covers lately. Yea…I know…I’m a deep thinker. I think about them because we painted almost every room before moving in two years ago. That means we removed the electrical covers. Two years later, there are still outlets and light switches without covers. Isn’t that pathetic? Come on, Joe…grab the screwdriver and put all the covers back on. After dinner last night, that’s just what I did. I repented of my electrical cover negligence. I took specific and measurable steps. I grabbed the screw driver, found the covers, found the screws, and checked all around the house. The job is not done. A few of the covers were cracked. The next step is to stop off at Lowes, purchase the remaining covers, and install them as soon as I get them home. See? It only took me two years to complete a twenty minute job. But, I did repent.

Jesus’ first sermon started with the word REPENT! It means to change one mind. Do a one-eighty. It’s an appropriate message for the start of the year. As the message began to take hold in my mind, I remembered many things that have yet to be finished. These things go far beyond household chores but extend to heart issues. Lessons have not sunk in yet. I need to be in a repeated state of repentance. God is working, and he gets all the credit. Over the years, the same projects seem to come up. They are just not getting done. I can wait until next year or take the steps I need to take. What needs to be done on my end? Is there anything I need to remove? Anything I need to start? Any bridge to burn? Any phone calls to make, sin to confess, attitude to adopt?

How about you? The good news is that repentance is a good thing. We shed the crud and become more like Jesus. The other good news is that he gives the grace, self-control, and power that we need. We need not rely on our flesh to do a spiritual thing. Those electrical covers have been off long enough.