Greetings!
We have a Lion in our backyard. At least that's what my husband claims!
Over the past decade, every time I suggest that he might want to go out and repair the stone wall that supports the plot where I want to plant my garden, he puts it off by telling me that there is Lion in our back yard! Now the wall, for lack of care, has finally fallen down and is completely beyond home repair.
He states that the reason for his lack of enthusiasm for my suggested backyard project is documented in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs and is best reconstructed in the thermodynamic principle of entropy, namely that everything tends to move backward into a state of disorder if left alone. Every sluggard or undisciplined person knows that! If you have a painted fence and leave it alone long enough, the paint will disintegrate and peel off and then the wood will begin to rot and the fence will ultimately collapse. And it all starts out with the sluggard making up any excuse not to do what he knows he ought to do. Or as we read in the Book of Proverbs: The sluggard says, "There is a Lion out there in the backyard." Proverbs 26:13.
This dilemma is also true of our Spiritual lives. It is easy to become too lazy and undisciplined in our study of Scripture and in our seeking out God's will for our lives. We don't venture forth in faith to understand and to acknowledge God's will ... thinking that we might encounter lions. Neither do we devote ourselves to a daily regimen of spiritual exercises such as reading the Bible and praying (we have our own lions and tigers to face) and consequently our spiritual lives deteriorate from order to disorder.
When guests arrive at the Mission, one of the first things that we do is to give them a Bible and help them get started on a self-disciplined devotional life. Then as they enter our counseling programs they are better equipped to kill their lions and tigers and deal with their real, underlying problems.
Well, I solved our problem! I killed the Lion in our backyard! It was easily done. I simply called a landscape company and had them come over and repair the wall ... as a gift to my husband for Father's Day ... and then I billed his credit card!
I hope you all enjoyed a Happy Father's Day weekend.
Barbara B. McCall, J.D.
Director of Donor Development
People's City Mission Home
People's City Mission Foundation
We are just 10 days away from the annual People's City Mission Golf Tournament at Wilderness Ridge.
