A true tabula rasa…by Barbara Chadwick
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
This devotional encouraged me so much this morning…what can I plan to do for those I love?
Your Day – A Blank Page
By Barbara Chadwick
Each day when you open your eyes you have a whole new day ahead of you, an entire blank page. You may think your day’s page is already full but you have the power over your page. You have the power to insert some splotches of color onto a gray page day, to rejoice over a day already filled with color, or to fill a totally blank page with blessing others.
A recent lesson in my writing course is entitled, The Creative Process. The point is to write. The first assignment is to fill three double-spaced pages as fast as you can. It’s an exercise in free writing. It doesn’t matter what you write!
In the textbook the author tells about larceny in his third grade. When the teacher left the room he would take some blank pages from her desk. He’d fold the pages over then staple a construction paper cover to the back. He could hardly wait until school was over so he could begin filling those empty pages with stories!
How wonderful would it be if we could hardly wait to get up in the morning to begin filling the blank pages of our day with our story!? Then if the words and actions on that page would glorify God it would be amazing!
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1 MSG
In a writing course to bring out the creative side in us we can just begin writing. We can write anything. We can write as fast as we can without thinking about punctuation or – consequences. However, in a life it does matter what we write on our days. Our days are not an assignment or just practice. We need to be thinking about intentionality – about placing this day before God as an offering.
When I prayed at breakfast this morning I thanked God for the day and the opportunities it presented to me. Now, after having my devotional my mind goes to the day before me. What do I have to get done today? My mind makes a list: lesson 40, a luncheon, mending, grocery shopping, etc.
On the blank page of my day have I put down any intentional activities to be encouraging to anyone? I need to include my family here! Will I speak to anyone about Jesus? How can I share my resources with someone in need? Can I show kindness and love to someone today? How about my family? I keep inserting “family” here because so many times our families receive the gray or even black pages of our daily story! They must receive some of our rosiest pages.
If we could keep a tablet (of blank pages) by our bedside and just before going to bed we could jot down whatever way our page for that day was a blessing to someone, would it help to remind us that tomorrow we have another entire wonderful page to fill with God’s goodness and grace?
