Painful Pruning but not Impossible

Stay alert, hold firm to all that you believe. Be mighty and courageous.......Paul's instructions I have 1 Corinthians 16:14 tattooed on my wrist. Let love and kindness be the motivation for all that you do. But 16:13 is so important that I don't want to overlook it. I need to do everything in love but that does not mean compromising my faith and convictions. It takes a lot of courage to stand firm in today's culture. It is so easy to let life chip away at how I live and what I believe. 

Pastor Lanessa challenged us to prune this past Sunday. Our church is doing a series on staying Rooted. Pruning things from life that need to be eliminated is difficult. Some are bad habits that I got into during the pandemic, some are misdirections I have allowed for decades. All are activities I know I shouldn't take in or waste my time on. Replacing them with well spent time is going to be key. 

So I feel convicted to remove all games from my phone. I will keep them on my laptop since I do love to color, match 3d items, and play solitaire. But I am eliminating them from my phone. How will I ever manage to wait at a doctors office or go to the bathroom without my games? I wondered the same thing. Is it even possible? So I have downloaded a few Bible reading apps to redirect my attention when I have a few minutes to grab my phone. Does this mean that I think you all need to delete your favorite games? Absolutely not! God put this on my heart to do. If you read my blog you will know I eliminated my games a few weeks ago. Yep, I downloaded more a few days later. I am a work in progress. This time I chose to keep them on my laptop so I still can enjoy the games but not carry them with me everywhere I go. Yesterday was a success. I went to the doctor and read the  Bible rather than painting by numbers a bowl of fruit.  My hope is to make it through a week at a time. Pray for me.

For you the pruning may be spending time with a negative person, baking too many cookies,(if that is even possible), saying yes to too many worthy causes, binging Netflix, or simply avoiding others. Replacements will look different for each of us too. Maybe you need to spend more time studying, exercising (that's me), connecting with friends, or simply being still. Whatever we need to shift or prune in our lives can be prayerfully driven. It will take ! Corinthians 16: 13 and 14 to achieve the prune. We must stand firm, have courage, and also do everything in love. It won't help to beat ourselves up when we fall back into old patterns. But we need to encourage ourselves that with God anything is possible. This time I am going to pray for self-control so I don't download games on my phone while allowing myself to add as many as I want to my computer. If you see me with my laptop at the doctor's office, please pray for me. 😋 Hopefully that won't happen. 

In Him, 

Joyful

5-10-22