Love and Obedience: The Connection

Brody forgets to hang his towel up... a lot.  He leaves it in the floor of his room and sometimes on his bed still wet.  I've told him a thousand times not to do this, that he can hang his towel on the towel rack that was made for that purpose and use it more than once.  It's an ongoing thing.  I've scolded, yelled even, and become completely irritated by the fact that Brody forgets to hang his towel up…  a lot.  But the other day, I went downstairs where he was and being filled with love for him because he really is the  best kid ever...  He's kind and generous and thoughtful.  He never gets in trouble.  He makes wise decisions.  He hangs with the good kids.  He IS a good kid, very good, even though he forgets to hang his towel up... a lot.  I gave him a big hug for the morning, just a good morning hug really, and told him that he was such a good boy.  "You're such a good boy, Brody," I said,  "such a GOOD boy.  I am so proud of you."  He loved the hug and the compliments.  After I patted him on the back a few times just out of a mother's sheer happiness with such a fine young man, Brody held up his finger and said, "Wait a minute."  He walked to his room, picked up his towel out of the floor, and hung it on its place. 

Thoughts to Ponder

I go down to our farm in Chilton County a lot.  There's lots of trees and plants and grass there.  But there's no t.v. or internet or phone except for my cell.  I can listen to the birds and cut flowers and put them in a vase.  Maybe I work the garden or dig up weeds, but the main reason I go there is because it's quiet.  I can think there.  I'm not tempted to do housework or laundry or watch t.v.  I can be alone with God.  I can be still and think and pray. 

I think that our culture is so tuned in and plugged up that we miss the quiet goodness that nature provides.  We don't have to think because the answers are so readily available to us.  You don't know who Genghis Khan is?  Google him.  You can find out in two shakes of a lamb's tail.  Never heard that idiom used?  Google it.  You'll know where it came from in...  You get the picture.  In all that information, something is lost...  the ability to think things through, to wonder, to dream, to ponder. 

Our world is moving forward so quickly that the "facts" are being lost.  Take the word "crucial."  It means decisive, important, or significant.  That's what a current Webster's dictionary says, but I have an old "Handy Edition" published in 1944 by the John C. Winston Company that defines crucial as cruciform (cross-shaped), intersecting, severe or searching.  How this very useful, modern word came to be is a testament to the Christian heritage of our forefathers.  So, the next time your history teacher tells you its "crucial" that you do your homework, you could tell him/her with certainty that it's not quite "that" important.