Holier Than Thou

At church on Sunday, Amelia saw the age old demonstration of the toothpaste squeezed out of the tube and the inability to put it back into the tube. This was to represent how once our words come out of our mouths we cannot take them back.

Unfortunately as an adult, I am still learning this lesson. I hate it when things come out wrong and you just want to suck them right back in, but of course are unable.

Tuesday night I got to go out with the ladies from our neighborhood for our monthly outing. At the news that our neighborhood was hosting a 5K walk/run sometime near Thanksgiving, many at the table, myself being one of them, became motivated to start training to run the event. Come on, surely I can train to run 3 miles in 6 weeks! I know I can barely make it to the stop sign down the street from me right now. But with a little work, I think I can do it. Anyway, everyone started talking about how they would find the time to run. I began talking to my girlfriend Stacie about the possibility of running in the morning before she went to work. Many chimed in, "Oh, I could not wake up that early to run. No way!" My friend Stacie mentioned that I usually wake up early anyhow. So I say, "Yes, I usually wake up at 5:45 to do my bible study".

How Holier Than Thou did that sound? To a group of women who don't know me that well, I may as well have said, "I am a very disciplined, devout, bible reading, woman of the Lord who is so selfless that I wake up at the wee hours of the morning to pledge my devotion to God!" HA! That's what those who really know me would say. HA! Those who know me well know that none of those words (disciplined, devout, selfless) would describe me at all. Actually, if there was any other time of the day that I could actually do my study, I would. I did quite a lot of rationalizing why I couldn't wake up and still be a good mom all day long. I was pretty slow coming around to the commitment to wake up. Several years slow. And if I am not physically accountable to a bible study that has homework, I would rarely be in God's word at all. The only reason I prioritize being in a bible study in the first place, is not because of any godliness in me, but the knowledge that when I am not spending time in prayer and study, I lose perspective and fail miserably at everything I attempt. The other realities of my 5:45 time with God is that sometimes I fall asleep, sometimes I cut it short so I can crawl back in bed for 10 minutes, and sometimes I turn off the alarm all together.

So please, don't for a minute think I've got it all together when it comes to my relationship with God. I have to constantly work on it. It continues to puzzle me why I would struggle to give this short amount of my day to hearing from God. It is the best thing I ever do for myself. And yet, I am continually giving my time to things that do nothing for me. If you happened to catch my Holier Than Thou comment the other night at dinner, please know that is so not my heart.