What do you think about while you do your work? Where are your thoughts while you’re washing the dishes? Folding the laundry? Vacuuming the floors? Today I stumbled upon this in my stash of good stuff to read. I think it deserves to be printed on nice paper, framed and hung in a place of daily viewing.
You can view and print a ready-to-print copy here: Click to view printable or copy and paste to your own document.
WEEKLY CHORES FOR LIFE
Author unknown
Monday - Wash Day
Lord, help me wash away all my selfishness and vanity, so I may serve you with perfect humility through the week ahead.
Tuesday - Ironing Day
Dear Lord, help me iron out all the wrinkles of prejudice I have collected through the years so that I may see the beauty in others.
Wednesday- Mending Day
O God, help me mend my ways so I will not set a bad example for others.
Thursday - Cleaning Day
Lord Jesus, help me to dust out all the many faults I have been hiding in the secret corners of my heart.
Friday - Shopping Day
O God, give me the grace to shop wisely so I may bless my family with contentment and happiness and all others in need of love.
Saturday - Cooking Day
Help me, my Savior, to brew a big kettle of brotherly love and serve it with clean, sweet bread of human kindness.
Sunday - The Lord's Day
O God, I have prepared my house for you. Please come into my heart so I may spend the day and the rest of my life in your presence.
When we go about our work we must not see it as a horrid chore...
“Grin and bear it.”
“Grit your teeth.”
“Just get it over with.”
We should see that work as an opportunity to talk to God about life.
I really don’t like to do laundry. I like it done but I don’t like the process of doing it. When we have to do the unpleasant work we should use it as a time of prayer and thanksgiving. “Lord, help me wash away all my selfishness and vanity, so I may serve you with perfect humility.”
Every day and every minute of every day we should be praying. It is the will of God for us to do that.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
How do we do this? Is it practical? I say, yes. It is a habit of the mind. Instead of talking to ourselves, talk to Jesus. When you have a question, ask Him. If you run into a little problem, “Help me please.” And always, “Thank you Jesus.”
Do you know someone, or are you this person, who is caught up in a cycle of depressing thoughts? Perhaps it is about an event or maybe a series of bad things that are a part of her history but she has a litany going on in her head of these bad things. When she opens her mouth it all comes spilling out, rehearsed in her head a million times. She’s stuck in a spot, a habit of “Poor me.”
Or, a person or place can trigger a series of unpleasant memories that start to roll around in our mind. Anger builds yet again at that person. “Help me, my Savior.” “O God, give me the grace.” “Dear Lord, help me.” Talking to Jesus, giving it to Him, turning our thoughts around is the way to overcome habits of the mind that bring us down.
When we’re having a day when it all seems to be going wrong, everything we touch falls apart, we say, “O God, give me the grace.” He will help you. He will show you His mercy. He will bless you through someone else. Your problems may not be instantly solved but you will know His presence with you when you start talking to Him.
Sadly, drama sometimes finds its way to our front door. Family, neighborhood, church, work—drama seems to happen everywhere. “He said,” “She said,” “Can you believe...” “And then...” “She did?” Add to this some “analyzers” and you get all sorts of diagnoses and names for the sins in the drama and why the drama unfolded.
Then there are the players that tweak the drama a little bit higher with some wide eyes and “I heard...” “Did you hear?” “It’s terrible!” “Can you imagine?” “Lord help us all!” The “ambulance chasers” feel the need to “help” in some sort of sick reflected glory sort of way.
How do you stop thinking about and getting sucked into the titillating sordidness?
Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. 1 Timothy 5:13
Stay home (including the internet and phone).
Be busy at home (get busy in a home and family project).
And renew your mind.
But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:20-24
In reading the rest of the Ephesians passage we learn what the focus of our renewed mind should be on. When we focus on good we can’t be thinking about evil. The two are not compatible. There can be no darkness where there is light. Where the light of Jesus shines there is agape love.
And when we’re doing our work we ought to be in prayer for our husbands, our children, our extended families, our church, our friends and neighbors, our community, our country, on and on... When something comes to mind, turn it over to God and pray about it. The thing that comes to mind does not have to be a problem in order to pray over it. It could be a thanksgiving or blessing.
Pray that we would be a blessing on all those we serve everyday with the work we do day in and day out. And as we work let’s pray that God would work on us.
Blessings,
Kim Brenneman
Kim is the joyful wife of Matt and the blessed mother of nine children.
When not busy homeschooling and farmschooling, she enjoys writing, gardening, cooking, reading, sewing, and crafting.
Kim lives on a farm in Iowa where her family grows beef cattle, corn and beans, and operates a micro-dairy selling cheese at farmer’s markets. She loves to write and speak about her passion for home and family. She is the author of Large Family Logistics: The Art and Science of Managing the Large Family. She blogs about the same subject at:
http://largefamilylogistics.blogspot.com.
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