Yeast

             These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

 

            Forty years ago, when I started researching my family tree, I would take time at lunch (at the library) to do research. I would go home from work and spend a couple of hours every day doing research. I spend at least half of my summer vacations in the library in Bloomsburg or wandering cemeteries in Luzerne County, PA. Digging up dead relatives even ended my interest in football, because I would sneak in to look for someone on an ad, and an hour later, realize the game was over.

            Twenty years ago, when I lost 90 lbs., I got mad and focused on doing very little except diet and exercise. Ten years ago, when I decided to start writing again, I took my manuscript to work with me so I could look at it n breaks and during lunch. When I was writing at my best, I spent from 8 pm to 11 pm every night writing. I have so many things going on that I have difficulty focusing on my book for an hour each evening because I’m also doing this and that. One of my challenges with making Sunday a rest day is that it takes a lot of work to “rest,” meaning that rest isn’t restful.

            What all of those have in common is focus. We accomplish things when we focus. When I can get myself to focus, we’re talking a laser beam of attention, but most of the time I’m closer to a disco ball light.

            Today’s passage is all about laser beam focus. We are to have God’s laws and principles on our hearts, heads, and mouths. They are to direct our ways, and we’re to teach our children to live by them to such an extent that they don’t have much chance to learn any other way.

            But the things I told you I did are lies, in a way. I wasn’t as focused as I claimed. I held a job, took care of a household, and did al the mundane things I needed to do. In the same way, today’s passage tells us to teach God’s law as when we sit at home, walk the roads, lie down, and get up. It doesn’t say to teach God’s law instead of doing those things. As we live our lives, we are to do them, meaning that they become a part of our lives in the same way that yeast becomes part of a loaf of bread when it is added to the flour, oil, water, sugar, and yummies. It works though the batter so that it becomes one with it and the only way you can tell that it isn’t in all of the bread is when the bread comes out drastically wrong.

            In the same way, if we keep adding God and His Word to our lives and prevent contaminants from interfering, His Word will work its way through our lives. It isn’t likely to be dramatic, but its absence will be identified by our lives being drastically wrong in some way.