Undone

I love to turn on the television while I doing busy work. It makes for great background noise. Cooking shows are the best, very little plot and often some humorous moments. I was watching a knock off version of terrible cooks, those people that come to some chef to learn how to cook but the find the worse cooks in the world with no culinary common sense to come and learn. Anyway, the one I watched had a young man and he was trying to bake cookies.  Being a very energetic guy, he was dancing around as he cooked with endless chatter. His charge was to bake a simple Snicker Doodle cookie along with an ice cream shake type drink. While he handled the shake drink perfectly, the cookie was a different matter. He realized he had left a few things undone. He had forgotten the cream of tartar and the cinnamon. 

Undone-ness. We all do it. We almost do some tasks in our lives. My husband's undon-ness shows in the yard work. He will mow the front yard one day, leaving the weed eating to another. But thanks to the Spring rains by the time he edges the yard could stand to be mowed again, but he doesn't have time for both so our yard often looks not completely done. 

If you are an avid workout fan and leave stretching and cooling down of our list to be done, we can injure muscles. I watched a movie the other day, where I am convinced the screen writer left the ending undone. It was very unsatisfying.

As I was studying today a line in one of my daily prayers for the Book fo Common Prayer is:

"we confess that we have sinned against in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone." 

Maybe it was the cooking show, or maybe God has been trying to get this part of my spiritual growth in order for a while but this line kept resonating with me. As I moved from my prayer time to scripture reading, I was assigned Psalm 4 in my reading plan and this line pops up: "Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord." In pondering this passage I have to wonder, what is a right sacrifice, and worse yet, what is a wrong sacrifice? In praying through these offering to me today, I realize that undone work for the Lord is not a right sacrifice. Giving of our self sacrificially is what grows us in the Lord. Letting parts of us go allows for more of Christ-likeness to take root within us. If I am only "halfwaying" or partially sacrificing my life for the growth of the Kingdom, I am leaving my gift to God in the state of not being complete - undone and that would not be a right sacrifice.

So the young man in the cooking show decided he needed those ingredients so he added the acidic cream of tarter, and the extra cinnamon to the sugar and cinnamon mixture needed for the outside dusting. If you have ever baked a SnickerDoodle, you can imagine what happened. The cookie was hard and crispy, not chewy and the punch of acid, and bitter cinnamon was barely palatable. 

Doing things with lack of intention, thrown together pulled out of your behind, is also a wrong sacrifice. It isn't sacrificial to give God a hodge podge of sacrifice. 

I will sit for a while with this thought, who am I not living rightly, what am I tasked with that I am not giving my full attention and intention?  What am I neglecting that I have been called to care for? What am I avoiding because it seems too hard, or more than I am willing to give? I plan today to find at least one thing God is calling my complete attention to, and I will give it! I sure there will be more.

Today:

• Give God all he deserves.
• Ponder your sacrifices, are the right sacrifices.
• And let be how you find rest in God on this day.