BEHOLD Baubles and Bargains and Brownies and Bathrooms and Bed, Blessings to Lay One’s Head.

My Saturday was SO BUSY, I BLESSEDLY was most thankful to go to bed after a BUSY day. Basically weekend warriors work at wacky combinations of wows on weekends. Days off are days ON. And we get WORN OUT. 

Basic living is what we need, right? But we surely live anything but basically these days – especially in blessed american dream dedication. Days are both blessed and burdened with baubles and busy. I could babble on about baubles – but I need to be back to the basics.

So what is the busy we should be basically doing? Be less burdened? Be more basic? How about BEHOLDING BLESSINGS and BEING THANKFUL. There is where we find BLISS!

Jesus said to a deciding disciple: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 

Basically we have to live life more lightly. LIGHT as in less burdened and LIGHT as in lit up for Christ – LIGHTING the WAY of HIS WAY – BEING LIGHT AND SALT!

I know it’s hard to be a full-time disciples for Jesus, but for a basic purpose, we best live “making due” and be thankful for what we do have! We are supposed to be BOLSTERING the BRIGHTNESS of the DAY – and yes, taking a battery recharge for ourselves.  You can’t be ON all the time from artificial light, you need to tap into a resourceful recharge. (Thus me/us resting now and pondering the restart for today.)

Yes, our days are filled with busy. Yesterday I was selling Christmas stuff at a local non-profit rummage sale at a historic site, gifting smiles and daffodils in my Santa suit, for “Christmas in April” – people were shocked and laughed – I sold about half my room contents in bargains that the people appreciated – they also appreciated looking inside the renovations of the place – chatting – and just reminiscing…  My favorite was little kids with their treasures (like little bird figures) which we either gave away or inexpensively sold. My ultimate JOY in seeing JOY was a 20-something who saw the wooden painted plaques for a video game and I gave them away at 2 for $1 – and he gave me a hug in astonishment and glee – yeah – JOY in the TREASURE find….  FUN…  Then we had to take the time for packing packing packing the leftovers for another sale day. My Christmas stuff was easy – 3 bins consolidated – but oh those vintage tea cups of fine china, from the other room, which were priced at pennies practically to simply unburden the big collection of attic finds, they took some time to repack. It is interesting to realize that these items, so beautiful and useful, came across the seas from places far away 75 years ago plus. They might have been used well or just viewed. I remarked that we are trying to practically give away something that an ancestor may have fought for as an inheritance…

Busy continuing, I then zipped home to grab a shower and be on the road again to a friend’s invitation to bingo fundraiser for the betterment of a cat shelter charity, lots of “B2’s” and “G52’s” but no winning except for the blessings of friendship and food, and thus the blessings of clean bathrooms, public and home, and the ultimate daily blessing of BED, whew!!!

Put a basic need in the busy lives we lead, how do we find the blessings? But just BEING and just BELIEVING in a purpose greater than basic living. Being with people who are thankful. Being thankful. Believing in thankfulness. It is a lesson for us, in learning from life now, to approach each day with less lust of life’s loads of loots, and be more transient, less trashful and more true. We need to truthfully TRUST in being TEMPORARY in this world, and just enjoy one day at a time. 

Jesus Himself said there is a cost to discipleship, that He Himself has no place to lay His head, must keep moving, must go out to work His Word-spreading work. We have work – in the worthy living of life. We have rest – in the restfulness of realization of temporary work in the here and now for eternal rest.

Isn’t life funny? We surely are human and we accumulate stuff and dust, we are human and fight for stuff like teacups that once were inheritance but now that outlive us, and maybe are burdens to pack in future generations for them to move or sell. We pour money into extravagant but fun events for foodies, but now eat off paper plates and fill trash cans with waste. (Trust me we wasted none of the yummy food from the bingo event last night – I just ate the leftovers of chicken salad sandwiches and half a brownie for breakfast, yum).  Life is funny as we pay money for a chance to win something like at bingo, that we could have just bought ourselves, but for the sake of a good cause, sure, it’s about community… Our jolly allows the recipients of the money to live better (in this case cats to have shelter and food while they await the home that will spoil them!). I enjoyed the event, feeling the normalcy in joy, and the blessing of friends of friends, knowing my gut said my blessing is to be thankfully present at all things in the present. I appreciated the normalcy for the woman next to me too – who had her arm covered and had been going thru cancer treatments. I also marveled looking across the room that 5 years ago we would never be here – we flew out of that covid era – it is like a distant memory now… Do we count our blessings for that?!? I also marveled at the historical site rummage sale that we are just a few stewards now of back-breaking work to build the infrastructure of the day – including indoor plumbing – are we thankful for that? I hope so!

So – what is the message in my wandering of pondering, plunked down in my restful den of a house? That we need to take our rechargeable spirits, and recharge them and look where to shine the LIGHT today – and if we have human limitations of needing daily down time, we have to simply be thankful to have what we have when we have it. And when we feel low, we should look for Jesus’s LIGHT.  And we have to remember that we have to BEHOLD BLESSINGS – no matter what they are – even in trials – whether they are brownies at bingo – or baubles at bargain prices – or blessings of modern bathrooms and beds.

We take the blessing to lay our head – into the rest of the ONE, Jesus, Who did not rest from His mission even if He did rest from his long days. Let us be MOST thankful – that He has shown and shone us the Way. Be the Light and the Salt of the day!

Amen

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The Cost of Discipleship Matthew 8:19-22 NKJV

And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

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Matthew 6:19-34 NKJV

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The Lamp of the Body
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

You Cannot Serve God and Riches
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Do Not Worry
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.