Keeping up...

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.     Deuteronomy 6: 6-7 NIV

With eight children, laundry is a never ending chore for my daughter. We used to share a

"momism" that if we didn't get every single piece of laundry done on wash day, the leftover pieces would go to seed and the piles of laundry would grow to epic proportions even more quickly before we washed clothes again. And the same was true with dishes in the sink. LOL!

As I read this morning's verse, I thought about those large piles of laundry and dishes - perhaps because I just returned from spending two weeks with my daughter. 

Dishes and laundry are definitely everyday chores for her. But if she intends to keep her brood clean and well-fed, she has to keep up with those chores by doing a few loads of wash and a dishwasher full of dishes every day.

In the same way, we need to hide God's word in our hearts daily - it is a discipline for us if we want to stay spiritually clean and healthy. (Sometimes we treat it like a chore! )

We are responsible to help our children stay clean and spiritually healthy too. Impressing God's Word on them  is as routine  and needful an activity as doing dishes and laundry - at least it should be.
As we look around us, there are thousands of things to give thanks for each day. There are hundreds of little events, circumstances and opportunities to remind ourselves and our children of who our God is and what he has done for us. There are those difficult but needful "teaching moments" when we must correct them as our heavenly Father corrects us.

God needs to be at the forefront of our thoughts and minds every moment of every day. If not, sin piles up like dirty laundry or dishes. We begin to feel overwhelmed and unable to keep up. Our peace falls away and we begin to fret over the smallest stuff. Our relationships suffer and we begin to die inside, a little at a time.

Moses didn't make this suggestion to the children of Israel to hang a weight around their neck, but rather to help them to remain strong as they entered into a new land so they would never again become slaves to disbelief and disobedience. And that's still true for us today.

So how are you doing? Are you keeping up with your relationship with the Lord each day? Are  you helping your children to love and remember the things he has done so they will walk in his paths each day?

Open my eyes, Lord, and help me see you in a thousand new ways every day. Strengthen my relationship with you and help me to be that encourager and spiritual strength trainer for others around me. Amen.