Pruning

I'm confessing. I have a habit that needs breaking. It's a habit I had to break before, but now it's crept up again on me.

Some of you have your coffee, some have your tea-- whatever it is that you must have before you feel like you can really start your day. I don't drink coffee, and I try not to become dependent on tea, but I had begun to feel incomplete in the morning if I don't hop onto the Internet first thing. My excuse was, "I'm checking my e-mail and planning my day" or "I have a deadline" but really, I knew better. It was becoming an idol.

When I found my thoughts wandering to the Internet more and more throughout the day, I knew I had missed my chance to prune this sin while it was still small. A few years ago, I was jumping onto the Internet every time I felt alone and removed while at home with my little ones. It's coming back. I start thinking, "Maybe someone e-mailed me" or "I wonder if anyone commented on my photos on Facebook?" Usually no one has, or at least, it wasn't anything urgent, and I end up wandering aimlessly from site to site for a few minutes, wasting my precious time. The 'web' was aptly named.

So I have made a rule for myself: no computer whatsoever until I have read my Bible. I was building the foundation of my days on the computer, not on God's word. I decided to start with the epistles of Paul. Right now, I'm in Ephesians, chewing on one section at a time.

This morning, after my new morning routine, I went outside to hang the laundry. I decided it was also a good time to prune the cypress trees in the back; most of them were looking scraggly. Some leaves were so overgrown that they were hanging and pulling the whole branch down. As I snipped and strained, I noticed how one tree in particular looked green and healthy on the outside, but the more I trimmed back, the more I saw the brown and dead branches closer to the trunk. Oh, how sin can grow and cover and deceive! I also thought of the tool I was using, and how it would hurt if it was my finger getting cut, instead of a tree branch. I'm grateful that God's pruning doesn't always hurt. If I'm obedient early on, it's only uncomfortable for a short while. But it still is hard work. My shoulders ached as I reached for the upper branches, and my hands were sore from pressing on the handles of the clippers for those extra-thick branches. But the trees look lovelier now.

We are creatures of habit. Idols are easy to come by, oftentimes, without our knowing. But if I may be permitted to write as Paul wrote centuries ago in I Corinthians 1:31 ("Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord")-- If I must have habits, let them be habits of Christdom.

(oh, and if I am not replying to e-mails and such as quickly as I used to, please forgive me.)