Don’t Look. Don’t Look, I Say!

You know that game people play where they make a circle with thumb touched to index finger and try to get you look at it? If you look, then they say, Made you look! and slug you. You might be able to imagine that I always looks. Every time.

And I have come to the conclusion that the Devil has a thumb and an index finger.

So I’m sitting in a Mexican restaurant this week, eating way too many chips with salsa before the entrée arrives.

Our friends are in from out of town, and they have pictures to show us of their new winter home on a beach front in Belize. Scrolling through pictures on her IPad, my friend says, You might be surprised that there is a very large Mennonite community in Belize.

She goes on to talk about the remarkable industriousness of the Mennonite people. She herself is industrious. Makes her own bread from scratch –that sort of thing.

In creeps that feeling of, Why can’t I be more industrious like these people? 

And I feel the slug before I realize what has happened.

You do remember that it was only TWO days ago that I wrote a sweet little blog post about how we are all unique. Remember that? How I said, quite eloquently perhaps, how we don’t have to try to be like anyone else.

But the Devil made me look at the Mennonites.

Look and compare.

Again.

I fall for that Every. Stinkin’. Time.

Today I thought, Hey, I do work hard! I am industrious! I did seven hundred thousand loads of laundry after our family reunion and paid bills. I’ve put in dozens of hours this summer preparing to teach Spanish. I’ve blogged. I’ve spent time with the Lord every day. I’ve run errands and bought groceries.

My tasks cannot be compared to those of the Mennonites of Belize.

These two verses come to mind:

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…  (Ecclesiastes 9:10 NIV)

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart…  (Colossians 3:23 NIV)

You, you, you.

Whatever YOU do.

Your hands.

I don’t think God expects me to milk cows and make furniture by hand. Ha! Who would want to sit in a chair I made? Best I stick with words. Spanish, blog stuff, Bible studies. I’ll do that with all my heart.

And wash underwear!

So, what do you do with your hands? With all your heart?