I was awoken at 4am this morning by some irrational, angry tenants. I don't want to relive the details, but everyone knows how much I hate having empty apartments, and I want their apartment to be empty right now--that's how frustrating they are! But, there were some pluses to waking up early. I cleaned all of the common areas in my apartment, and I cleaned the entire apartment building. I got some filing done, and I'm feeling caught up and good about life in general. I think the BFF and I are going to take a spontaneous trip to PDX this weekend with our bikes! I'm super stoked!
Today's 100DOWL topic was "Do it anyway." It talked about how we get all stoked and motivated, but at some point or another we're not going to FEEL like exercising, or cooking a healthy meal, or staying away from the sweets, and the book's advice--do it anyway. This is one of my favorite chapters because it reminds me that there are plenty of things that I don't want to do all the time--but I do them because they're important. Am I important to myself? Is my health important? If so--I stay committed and "do it anyway." Yoga-check. Eating healthy-check. Mostly staying away from sweets--half check. Ate two unplanned cookies today, but stayed away from other sugar temptations :)
Today I read the first part of Matt 6 (1:18). I stopped at 18 because I feel like there's so much to say about the last half of the chapter, plus these first verses have so much in common. The basic message is if you do good things in order to get recognition from people, that's all the recognition you're going to get. If you give to the needy and shout it from the rooftops, pray to be seen by men, or fast so people KNOW you're fasting, all the props and admiration you get from said people are your reward. If you do these things discretely, God rewards you. I think it goes back to the fact of letting your light shine so people can see your works and praise God. If you're doing things purely to bring attention and admiration to yourself, you motives aren't pure and you just don't get it.
There's always that question of--if you're doing good, what's the difference anyway? I kind of think about it in the way of kids doing good only because someone's watching. When people aren't watching, they don't behave, but when they know an adult's watching, or they get a prize, they behave. They don't do it because they understand it's the right thing to do, or have the right motives--they do it out of fear of getting in trouble, or because they only want props--but 99% of the time in their downtime they're doing something completely OPPOSITE of good. God wants us to give, and pray, and fast, because we understand his heart behind it. We give so that others can feel his love and compassion. We pray so that we can hear from him. We fast so that we can be more in tune with him...something about pushing aside our physical wants to become more connected to the spiritual. Anyway, if someone's doing these things for props or to avoid hell, they're not really getting it. The behavior lasts for a moment, but isn't true...and that's not what God wants.
He wants us to understand love, compassion, generosity, and the amazing feeling of giving up what we want and getting something so much more amazing in return. His motives are good, and what he has for us is amazing. I pray that I will not do things because it's "what I'm supposed to do," but because I understand and believe in the motives behind it. It's good to be reminded :)
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