Keeping Track of Important Documents is My 23rd Priority
Yesterday, I got pulled over because I was missing the sticker you’re supposed to put on your license plate to show it's not expired. My plate isn’t expired. But it is stickerless. I must have overlooked the sticker because sometimes, I throw unopened mail into one of my six junk drawers.
To help you understand, here are, sort of, how my priorities are ordered…
- Love God
- Clean spills/ toddler bathroom accidents
- Be Heimlich-maneuver-ready at all times
- Make one-on-one time for older child
- Rescue toddler who is standing on top of the steering wheel of her wooden car on one foot
- Cook egg whites for my fit and active husband
- Meet writing deadlines
- Bathe and dress other people that live in my house
- Make meals for other people that live in my house
- Put dishes into the dishwasher
- Re-wash clothes that I forgot to move into the dryer
- Miscellaneous emergency
- Miscellaneous emergency
- Miscellaneous emergency
- Miscellaneous emergency
- Miscellaneous emergency
- Keep up with my blog
- Sweep and make sure most of the gross things are put away/hidden
- Eat
- Bathe
- Exercise
- Finish reading “The Nightingale”
- Keep track of all the important papers
- Clean the microwave
See, it’s just that keeping up with important papers is way down on my list. Really, the only thing less urgent to me than vital records is cleaning the microwave. I hate papers. I also hate the hassle of signing up to go paperless. How do I even sign up to go paperless if I don’t know any of my codes or passwords?
Is this happening to me because I’m thirty now?
As an adult, I’ve settled into the rhythm of playing up my strengths and laughing off my weaknesses, because I can. For example, neither my job nor my home life require me to do math. I hate math with a deep, seething, murderous hatred. So, I refuse to compute anything. 4 + 7? I’m literally going to count that on my fingers.
I’ve essentially decided not to organize my important papers or learn to count. But, I want everyone to know about the things I do well.
I’m the same way with my spiritual strengths and weaknesses.
I give myself a pass on my weaknesses and accentuate “my” strengths. This leads me not only to grow weaker where I’m weak , but it makes me proud of what God has grown in me, as if I have anything to do with that!
There is nothing good in me...Romans 7:18 My righteousness is like filthy rags...Isaiah 64:6 It is GOD who does a good work in me...Philippians 2:13
Anything good in me isn’t me at all. It’s a gift. God-given. It is God working through me. I have made it very clear, in my thirty years, that my motives can’t stay pure for one hot minute.
Flashing around my “good” qualities, the ones that come more naturally to me, is foolish and distracts from any part of me that can be used to glorify God. Just because some of the words used to describe Christ-likeness cater to my wiring, it doesn’t mean I’m like Christ.
Being “godly” in a way that exalts self isn’t being godly at all.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
-Micah 6:8
To walk humbly requires that I daily admit there is nothing good in me, apart from Christ.
To walk humbly requires that I desire to look like the real Jesus - the Jesus who loves mercy and acts justly - more than I desire to look like this image of success I’ve conjured up.
Being able to put my finger on my registration sticker at the drop of a hat won’t make me godly. But, loving an orderly God and earnestly trying to look like Him will.
Pursuing Christ will lead to true humility and genuine growth where I’m weak, which, win-win, might result in fewer junk drawers.