Last week it was pointed out to me that when I wrote the post entitled, “Tell the Truth” that I had not finished the article. Hmm…interesting…I thought I had. This person pointed out to me that I had not discussed the other side of the proverbial coin. After stewing over it for a bit, I realized they were right.
In my situation that day, the truth was that water gets spilled, the dog made mud from said water, and mopping was in order. The truth was that education abounded and yes, clean up was in order. The truth in my situation was that I was being hard on myself for no good reason.
What about the times when the schoolroom is a mess because rather than cleaning up after school, we sat around and surfed Pinterest all afternoon? What about the times when the floors are filthy because I choose laziness over diligence. Please hear me! I know full well that there are days we diligently care for our families all day, tuck the children into bed a night, only to turn around and see our homes in utter chaos! I am not talking about these days! I am talking about the things in our life that occur because of our poor choices. Part of our calling as women in Titus 2 is to be homemakers. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance tells us that this Greek word means “a stayer at home, i.e. Domestically inclined (a good housekeeper).”
Ouch!
The flip side of the coin is that we must tell ourselves the truth, even when it hurts. Then, we must take action to bring our lives and actions more and more in line with what God desires for us! Using my example of a disorderly home, let’s look at the flip side. When we see a pattern of chaos in our home, we must take action to bring order! Would it be helpful to scale back out-of-home commitments? Would a routine or schedule for cleaning bring more order to the home? Are the children being taught to help around the house? Or is the simple fact that there needs to be more diligence and self-control on our part? I know that at various time of my life, I have experienced all of these variables that created chaos in my life. Some of these are still a daily struggle in my life.
At the end of the first post, I stated
Oh, how much better our lives would appear if only we would tell ourselves the truth!
Perhaps I should rephrase this thought….
Oh, how much more our lives would glorify God, if only we would tell ourselves the truth, whether we like the truth or not!