Maybe This at the Top of Your List?

It’s Monday morning, and the list’s awaitin’.

The kitchen needs cleaned, because I had no energy for tackling it after picking huckleberries for two hours yesterday. Instead I took two Ibuprofen for my back pain and went to bed.

There are all these chores and errands that need done this week, but I’m pausing at Paul’s words to Timothy before I get going:

Watch your life and doctrine closely… (1 Timothy 4:16)

A doctrine check was not on my to-do list.

Saturday night at church we sang a new song that was based on the Apostle’s Creed. As a lifer Southern Baptist girl I never learned this creed, but that preacher man of mine enjoyed some years of education at a private Lutheran school. He can rattle off the whole Nicene Creed, which is very similar to the Apostle’s Creed.. (Did you grow up learning these?)

Both start out something like this:

We believe in…

What I’ve been learning over the last year or so is that what I believe about God affects everything. It determines how I feel about myself and how I treat people.

My belief gives me something to do with guilt and directs what I do with anger and frustration and impatience.

What I believe gives me:

Hope.

Purpose.

My creed supersedes my Monday to-do list.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from my daughter’s wedding. See how the cross rises above everything? The remembering of Christ’s sacrifice comes before the years of marriage.

Can you imagine if we were to begin every day with such a sacred look at our doctrine?

I decided to make an attempt at writing my own creed:

I believe God Almighty created huckleberries and soft bear grass for a Montana girl to sit on while she picks them.

I believe the same God who sent the refreshing breeze through the pine trees sent his one and only Son to take the punishment for everything I did wrong last week and everything I’ll get wrong this week.

I believe Jesus came back to life, so I can live -becoming steadily more the flawless person he intended me to be.

I believe God loves me and cares what I do during these warm August days.

Will you speak your own creed this morning? Gospel truth to hold onto before you get to work.