Freedom to Consider All That Is True

My email refuses to update, so I can’t straighten out my daughter’s college housing situation.  My banking app won’t load, so I can’t deposit my paycheck.  My laptop crashes every fifteen minutes.  A morning like this pushes me ever more firmly toward apostasy.*
 
Then again it is also a beautiful day outside.  My window is open for the first time in two weeks.  Bee balm, gladiolas and hydrangeas are blooming like crazy.  I pick yellow squash almost every day and this is going to be my best blackberry year since we moved into our house.  Galatians 5:13-18 is my preaching text this Sunday.  In part it reads,
“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing what you want.”  
I chose it awhile back particularly for 4th of July weekend, for considering the difference between the spiritual freedom we have in Christ and the patriotic freedom of our citizenship.  But I’m aware of an even more basic freedom this morning – the freedom to consider all that is true in this time and place:  the broken parts and the parts that work, the irritation and the beauty, the frustrating and the soothing.  To consider and to choose from which parts I shall choose my disposition for the day.  
 
So I’ve thought it over and decided that on balance and for now, I’m going to keep the faith, even it if means abandoning technology and walking to the bank.  I pray your day is gentle in every way.  
 
~peace & prayers,  pastor annette

*  apostasy ~ renunciation of a religious faith, abandonment of a previous loyalty                            

 Two beauties from my day:
 Blue, green, gray, tan & brown eggs;
 Things blooming at my house.