Another Two Days

Now Atrayu's "the Nothing" sets in. If you've read the book, or seen the movie, "The Never Ending Story," you'll remember the struggle against evil, where evil was portrayed as "the Nothing," and represented the loss of imagination, an apathy toward dream and visions. I expected dry times along this path, and I expected sicknesses and schedule interruptions. However, it seems I am already fighting listlessness in this endeavor. Is my attention span this short?

With the heavy rains and flooding we have endured, network news has been back on the t.v. so we can follow events and see which roads are closed. It feels very intrusive. I despise commercials. Also, my wife has decided that she had so many great coupons for cookies that we now have more pakages of frozen cookies everywhere throughout the fridge, challenging my desire to be junk-free. As if that weren't enough, my upper back is tweaked AND I have a head cold! How much harder was prayer this morning, where God heard perhaps two or three cogent expressions in the hour. And of course running was out, since my head felt like it would explode.

But this is more than a fleeting fancy of mine, as some have treated it (usually laughing at the "Monk" thing - okay, it maybe a bit over the top). This is a commitment. It is a vow, of sorts. It is not guided by strict rules, but there are slippery slopes that lead to areas I don't wish to go. The real discipline is not in bumping up against the boundary lines as closely and as often as I can, but in discerning moment by moment which pieces of ground are sloped and slippery.

Juli's brownies are a good example. My 13-year-old is doing a cooking and nutrition class and makes all sorts of foods -mostly, it seems, baked and sugary. It was hard turning her down, but how far is it from a single bite of her brownies to the further compromise of accepting one of the many dozens of cookies they will soon be making? I felt bad enough letting a migraine and a couple hours' lost sleep force the compromise on Wednesday of getting up at 0530!

Anyhow, I know there will be times, just as in marriage and just as in the walk of faith, where there will be challenges and where there will be days, even weeks or months, that seem to lack inspiration. But the continued reminder is there, to "press on to to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." (Phil. 3:12)