Day 351: Growing Up

Today's Bible Reading: 2 Timothy 2:1-4:18

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace,
along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach,
patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,
and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil,
after being captured by him to do his will.      
    
-2 Timothy 2:22-26, ESV

Paul wrote these words specifically to Timothy and yet they are certainly ones we should pay attention to as well.  I mentioned yesterday that I am quickly approaching my 60th year so you would think I have stopped pursuing those youthful passions, but while my body is aging my mind still thinks and acts like a child far too often.  I was a lot more quarrelsome in my youth, I was quite impatient at times-which is strange to say as I have always been told how patient I am.  When we see what is going on in the world today we can get very impatient.  We want all of this stuff with Covid to be over.  And I won’t even go into our current political situation.  I recognize in my own life how it is a challenge for me to ignore ignorant controversies, to patiently endure evil, to not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone.  It is very important to realize the impact our words and actions, our very demeanor, has on those whose paths we cross.  As servants of the living God what we do will affect how they think about God.  I would much rather God is able to use my life to “capture” others to do His will. 
Another passage from today’s reading fits in very well here:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
equipped for every good work. 

-2 Timothy 3:14-17, ESV

I too have been taught and believed since childhood.  I was given my first Bible by my grandmother as soon as I was able to read it and was encouraged to make it a part of my daily life.  By it I am equipped by God for every good work as His word has corrected me when I was wrong and shown me what is right.  And so, I desire to be a good servant and obediently pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.  Not just as I am out in the world, but also in my own home.  How often does my beloved husband bear the brunt of my childishness.  I pulled the photo of the woman loading the dishwasher as a reminder that even in those household tasks I am serving the Lord.  They may seem mundane, but even they are an act of obedience as I do the work God has assigned to me.  I rarely think about loading the dishwasher as an act of love and peace, and yet it can be an issue of strife in our home if I let it.  It too is a part of the good works God has equipped me for.  Does it help to see our housework in that light?  I need to be faithful in what is before me as well as those greater things God gives me to do.  I pray I go into this day with this attitude of serving, serving God, serving my husband, serving whomever God brings into my path today. Laying aside myself and my youthful passions, and serving others with gentleness and kindness and patience.

May grace, peace, and mercy abound,