Day 065: Lawn of Life

He who works his own land will be satisfied with bread, but those who pursue vain things are in need of discernment.  Proverbs 12:11

Here is a commentary on how we should be living our lives.

On the surface, this admonishes us to live productively.  The second half of the proverb is pretty vague when it is taken by itself, but in context with the first half, it suggests that living one's life just to judge somebody else's is pointless.  As a musician, I have learned that I can't be directing my craft towards every set of ears out there.  In fact, I shouldn't even be directing my practice just to somebody else's ears.  I need to play for myself.  I have learned over the years about what I like and what I don't like in music.  I've been quite fortunate to have teachers direct me towards understanding my preferences and keeping consistent with them.

In the same way, we should be living our lives concerned with our own tasks at hand.  We have so many different challenges facing us each day that we can't handle all of them at once.  Just think about the things that you are already leaving off for tomorrow, next week, or even next year.  Yet, we think it's alright to make sure we are judging all the people around us as well.  That is what our issue is.  When we start bringing other people's faults (according to our own perceptions) into our lives, we end up wasting so much of our precious energy on the things that don't benefit us.  Rather than finishing up our projects for our school/job, we stand in a corner, burning with anger about someone else who - at least - is doing something.

Think about the image of land.  This past winter (which barely existed) has been quite an ugly one with our front yard.  I didn't bother to rake the leaves this winter, and the grass stopped growing, so I figured that everything was going to be alright until the next rains would come and wash away the superfluous leaves.  However, a bunch of crane flies decided to lay their eggs among the leaves instead.  Now, for the past two months, we have had quite a few crane flies just hanging out all over our front lawn, cars, trees, doorway, and, with little effort, in our own house.  Now that plants are starting to grow once again, there are very tall weeds growing around our rose bushes.  My own land is quite horrid at the moment.

Now, place that entire concept of land into the proverb.  Our lives are just as horrid as that land.  We face many different challenges with the land: weeds, flies, gardening, pruning, cutting grass, raking.  When we do the work that is necessary in our lives, we will receive our daily bread, and we will be satisfied.  When we tend to our spiritual lives, we will receive the bread of eternal life.

During this Lent, ask God to turn your discipline into daily bread.  Ask God how you can work on all the challenges you are facing.  Then, go and do them.