It Happened Again

It happened again this Thanksgiving. Domestically inspired, I did way too much. Not content with “plain old” pies (my Thanksgiving meal assignment), I made pumpkin cream cheese pie with a homemade cream cheese pie-crust and a black-bottom banana cream pie that required you to “chill for 30 minutes” after every step. Then there was cranberry sauce, seven-layer dip, mint squares... Enough said.

It happened again this Thanksgiving. I neglected my times with the Lord. I failed to depend upon Him by practicing the spiritual disciplines. I self-sufficiently rushed at my to-do list: chock full of really-do-matter and even more really-don’t-matter items and pushed aside (as our Lord told Martha) the one thing that matters most: sitting at His feet.

It happened again this Thanksgiving. I resolved afresh that Christmas would be different. I don’t want to spend the next three weeks “running around like a chicken with my head cut off” (I’ve never actually seen one, but I imagine the resemblance is probably striking). This doesn’t mean I won’t work hard on behalf of my family. But I want to do so, expressing dependence on God by a faithful pursuit of the spiritual disciplines. Charles Spurgeon describes the way I want to live: “We ought to be Martha and Mary in one: we should do much service, and have much communion at the same time. For this we need great grace. It is easier to serve than to commune.” (Morning and Evening, January 24)

It happened again this Thanksgiving. But I pray, by God’s great grace, it won’t happen again.