It Was Just a Farm

I've been thinking about a comment our granddaughter made while she was here with us. She and her brother (and I) spent several hours setting up the "farm" on our dining room table. Few details were overlooked! Fences were built, a pond constructed for the ducks, milking cows separated from the non-milking cows, a broom in the farmhouse kitchen and Christmas wreath on its front...You get the idea, don't you?

MY thought was that at least an hour or two each day would be spent actually PLAYING with the farm! When I suggested this the following day, Abigail's comment was, "I really don't like to play with it that much. I just like to set it up."

Paul, in Colossians 2:6-7 wrote, So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

I'm thinking about the temptation to get "set up" in the Christian life and then "drop the ball" in the sense of standing back and looking at the gift of salvation without actually getting involved with it daily...without revisiting the wonder and beauty of it and integrating its implications into our daily lives.  Without being a "player"!

How sad it would be to miss the awesome pleasure of interaction with God as we "work out" our salvation!

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:12-13)

It was just a farm.  The table is empty now,
but my head is still spinning with the lesson God is teaching me from it!