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What Is Your Emotional Work Ethic?

I asked mom for a dust rag, because those little chores were lingering undone in the season of her grief.

Oh honey, you don’t have to dust, she said. No one likes to dust.

That’s true, I said. So hurry up and give me the rag before I change my mind.

Are you willing to do emotional work?  -christyfitzwater.com

I hate dusting and usually wait to dust my own home until a shovel is more appropriate than a rag for getting the job done. My own laziness makes me crazy sometimes.

And I would say to you that there is an emotional laziness.

Feelings are like dust –they come and settle.

Like a slothful housewife, we let our feelings build, layer upon layer. Bitterness piles up. Woundedness coats every surface of the soul. Discouragement. Fear. Anger.

The dust bunnies of the heart.

But Christ stands always with a rag in hand, demanding that we wipe clean every surface of our emotions. And don’t think he’s going to let us get away with that kid thing, where we just swipe around stuff in a hurry and don’t pick up every item to do a thorough cleaning.

We have emotional work to do. Right now for me it’s grabbing onto my faith after the death of my father –determined to trust the Lord and maintain hope instead of giving in to cynicism and despair. It’s an everyday work, because we all know dust begins to settle five minutes after the first swipe, and so we come back and back and back again to keep the same surface shiny.

What emotional work do you need to do? Hold onto your marriage? Pray in faith about your financial situation? Trust God with the person you’re worried about? Forgive someone? Rest future worries in the capable hands of the Almighty?

Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.  (Ephesians 4:24 NIV)

May I suggest that you grab a real dust rag today and tackle some of those hard-to-reach places in your home. While you work with your hands, do emotional work in your heart. Meditate on a Bible verse that instructs you in how to deal with your feelings. Submit to God’s wishes for your heart situation.

And to quote Miss Hannigan, from the musical Annie, let’s make this place “shine like the top of the Chrysler Building.”