Are You a Scorekeeper?

I have a confession to make.  While I was working in the yard recently, I found myself grumbling about why some tasks had not already been taken care of.  My attitude morphed into a muttering about different projects that were yet undone.  I began to feel bitter and unsympathetic towards my husband whose job I felt it was to accomplish these things.  Make a list of those items still to complete, that’s what I would do!  I’d keep account of all the things I wanted him to finish and I’d point them out of course!

Apply the brakes right here!  Before I could get inside let alone create the “list”, God stopped me in my tracks with this nugget; from 1 Corinthians 13, the Love chapter.  The last part of verse 5 reads like this, “(love) it doesn’t keep a record of complaints.”   Scratch that list and begin a different one was what God was telling me. 

To share a few of the things on the new list:  Brooks (1) cooks breakfast and cleans up most every morning, (2) he pitches in when I need babysitting help, (3) he handles the finances and such.  I could name a few more but this was enough to get me to thinking, “so what if he didn’t blow the leaves away when I first asked.” 

Lesson learned you might say, but most likely I will need to be reminded again.  According to Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:  who can know it?”  God knows my heart and will convict and correct.  My intentions are good, but not being perfect I will fail.  I am thankful that I serve the One who is perfect and have the promise of forgiveness.

This quote from Pastor Randy Smith puts this into modern thoughts: “The flesh loves to store the ways others wrong us. It loves to dwell on these wrongs and exaggerate them exponentially. And it longs for the opportunity when they can be fired back at the one who wronged us as ammunition to get even or execute revenge.”  True, and to see what our ammunition to fight this is, reflect on 1 John 4:16, “We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.  God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them.”

In closing for your meditation:

Love is Patient

Love is patient, love is kind.It does not envy, it does not boast,it is not proud.It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered,it keeps no record of wrongs.Love does not delight in evilbut rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts,always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails.   1 Cor. 13:4-8