Whatsoever Wednesday

It's confession time.  I hate laundry.  See I said it, out loud.  I despise cleaning the floor.  I spend several hours a day shopping, washing vegetables, and cooking for my little family, and it's not always fun.  Because I live abroad, I walk to the market to buy my food and walk back home.  When the weather's good and the sun is shining, I have a little song in my heart.  But when the rain is pouring and the market's muddy, when I am juggling my bags and my umbrella and trying to keep the run off from running off onto me, I am grumpy.    I find that it is when my hands are busy but my mind is not that Satan gets a foothold in my life.  


Do you struggle with negative thinking? I do.  I don't mean not being a positive person, I am a tentative optimist. I mean the soundtrack in my head. "Why doesn't someone get in here and help me?"  "Why am I wasting my time, those kids will have this living room trashed again in 5 minutes!"  "Why on earth did I go to college to scrub these stupid floors?"  "Why can't I have 5 minutes of free time?"  I'm hanging my head over here, don't tell me I am all alone!

God has an answer.  "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9

At Harding University I heard more than one chapel lesson on this.  Of course they quoted it a little different. It was "whatsoever things…" and in my mind this became the "whatsoever" verse-a single word that encapsulated a whole array of chapel talks.  And they all pivoted on "don't" as in "don't fill your head with bad stuff- bad books, bad words, bad movies, bad music, bad pictures-bad stuff."  I can't disagree with the point. However, there is no hint of a "don't" in Philippians it's all about the good stuff going in.

We want to start a dialogue with you.  We want to tell you what kind of good stuff is going into our minds.  We want to reflect with you on the lovely books we are reading, the praiseworthy podcasts we are listening to, the pure music we are singing and the ways we are finding to bring noble and true things into the lives of our families.  And we want to hear from you. Comment and let us know what kind of things you are meditating on so that we can all be uplifted together!

Helene 
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright© 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.