Wednesday of the 5th Week of Easter
Acts 15:1-6 | Psalm 121:1-5 | John 15:1-8
I can’t be the only person who noticed a “severing with sharp instruments” theme running through today’s texts, from Jesus’ allusions to removing deadwood and pruning for better yield, to “thou shalt have thy foreskin removed to be followers of Christ”.
Last evening, I realised that I had been spending WAY too much time online each night, even though a lot of it was spent doing research for this blog. (Really.)
So I cut out most of that, and spent a couple of hours catching up on the nightly news and some cooking shows with my wife. She was greatly pleased at my sudden shower of attention, and I was entertained by some rather clumsy knife work by a local celebrity. Serendipity, or God’s plan? I await your incisive comments.
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We all have at least one thing we could stand to cut out from our daily lives, from excessive drinking to all-night gaming, from food porn to…the other kind. Regular fasting and abstinence reminds us of the “less is more” aphorism: fewer distractions to a deeper realisation of God’s bounty of love. Tomorrow may see the return of “deep research”, but at least today’s entry sprang effortlessly from my mind, like blood from sliced raw meat.
On second thought, that image should probably have been left on the cutting room floor.
Lord, give us the courage to remove anything that distracts us from Your Way, Your Truth and Your Life, and to help others do the same. Amen.