Minute Meditations

Our grandchildren have just completed their annual visit and have returned to Canada. Last year, our granddaughter, then age 6, was continually at the piano, banging away at the keys and pretending she was playing something. This past year she has been taking piano lessons and so this year her mother wanted her to practice the pieces she is learning and it was like pulling teeth to get her to the piano. Toy manufacturers sell miniature stoves, refrigerators and sinks for the little girls to play house with, and they love to pretend they are cooking, washing dishes etc. They also make toy tools and even miniature lawn mowers that putput for the boys to imitate doing what daddy does, but when these children grow older and are asked to use the real sink for doing dishes and the full size lawn mower to cut the grass, then it is no longer play but work, and young ones will avoid it like the plague. Why is it that we like to do that which we are not required to do and we avoid that which is expected of us? The one is called play and the other work. Adults will take vacations from their work and travel to a ranch to work ten times harder than they ever did in the city. It is our attitude that makes the difference between work and play. Since we must work for a living, why don’t we take the attitude that we like what we are doing, since we are going to have to do it anyway?

Our little granddaughter was constantly procrastinating. She didn’t know that was what she was doing but she kept putting off the piano practicing that her mother wanted her to do. Again, we are all so much alike. How often have we put off doing something we know we must do, and as long as we are not doing it, it is on our mind nagging us, but still we do not do it. We’ve also had another house guest recently, a dear sister from Rhode Island and while she was here she gave us a book entitled, ”Stop Procrastinating, Do It!” One of these days we are going to read it. Now that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it, to put off reading a book about procrastinating. Actually we have read it and it is very good. The author tells us, ”You might have to change a mood before starting to work on a task, especially if it causes you to procrastinate.” He goes on to say, ”Concentrate on spiritual things as a form of private devotion.” Now this is not a religious book, yet it is giving us some sound advice. When we lift our hearts and minds to things of God we are reminded of Paul’s advice ”whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men.”

By changing our attitude towards our work and doing it heartily unto the Lord, we will find that tasks which seemed boring and tiring take on a new meaning. By changing our attitude, we can learn to tackle them with gusto for the sheer joy of seeing them behind us instead of staring us in the face.

Again the author of the book on procrastinating tells us that ”you’ll get a lot more done if you can take it piece by piece.” This reminds us of the well known saying that ”anything’s a cinch, inch by inch.” Our young granddaughter was overwhelmed by the thought of practicing for a long period of time, but it’s only possible to play one piece at a time, and all she needs to do is change her attitude, make it fun again and play one piece at a time. We too, can make our jobs into beautiful music instead of discordant sounds by being happy in our work.

We recall that Paul confessed that ”when he was a child, he spake as a child, he understood as a child. he thought as a child; but when he became a man, he put away childish things.” Let us, too, grow up, and stop putting off the things we ought to be doing. Let us ”seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” and all other things in life will fit in their proper place.