Redeeming My Time

Simply Living for Him Heart Challenge - Part One

First off, I'd like to make a HUGE shout out to Karen DeBeus at Simply Living for Him for inspiring me to simplify in so many ways!  The thoughts she shares both from herself and others have helped me to simplify in my house and homeschool and now she has challenged me to simplify the things that try to capture my heart.

The first challenge she posted was about simplifying your time.  Time is such an easy thing to waste.  So to meet her challenge I decided to trade my "checking-out-this-is-when-Mommy-plays-games-on-her-phone-time" into time meditating on God's word.  So whenever I sat down for a breather instead of checking Facebook, browsing Amazon, or attempting to save the farm from eminent parking lot construction orchestrated by a nasty tie-wearing raccoon, I chose to sit and read Psalm 19. Now, before I get into my thoughts on the passage, I must tell you how this change of mind (or simplification of heart) transformed my week.

It was little things, really.  Things like reading the Bible out loud to my sweet baby as he nursed instead of browsing Facebook. Or asking my kids to identify the main idea of the passage while waiting for the hamburger to brown - Bible AND Language Arts: SCORE! Or myself and each of my kids reading the same passage to each other out of their preferred translation (yes my 8 and 10 year old have translation preferences) and then discussing the different nuances of each instead of us all just "hanging out" until bedtime.

And it was also bigger things like feeling more dialed in and less checked out with my family in general and humbling myself to ask my husband to pray for me as I tried to improve this area of my life - which he wholeheartedly did.

And I'm not going to go into the scriptural part of my journey too much - you can have your own adventures in the scriptures! But I will give you a few glimpses into my week. The first section of the passage I chose to meditate on was verses 7-9: "The Law of the Lord is perfect..."  which is what we decided was the main idea of the chapter since it was repeated - and if it's repeated, it's probably important, right?

Later in the week I was focused on the very start of the passage in verses 1-4a.  Here is where reading the different translations became important - go ahead. Try it.  We read it in NIV (84), NIV (2011), HCSB, and ESV.  And honestly it wasn't until I read it in the NET Bible that it actually made sense!  And sorry, you are going to have to go on that goose chase for yourself.  Let me know how it goes!

I'm looking forward to continuing this challenge into this coming week while meditating on Psalm 1 as well as taking on the second part of her challenge about storing your treasures in heaven. I'll let you know how it goes!