I tease that you can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl. : )
My Midwest fix for the summer has been planting our garden. Since our backyard is on a slope, it kind of turned into a fortress! My husband did an amazing job building it, and it has been a lot of fun to grow our produce!
These are some of my favorites…
The mighty zucchini! It’s like a balloon animal. Seriously. It’s fun to see how it grows. First a hollow stalk comes out, like one of those long skinny balloons that clowns use. Then the zucchini kind of comes from the base and fills in part of the stalk – just like someone blowing up one of those balloon animals. And the little flower on the end is like the knot on the end of the balloon. They’re really fun.
I also love the green beans… and all the ones that vine! Cantaloupe, peas – their little tentacles are so cute! They have a great time wrapping themselves around on the trellis and other plant stalks.
We’re also trying to grow strawberries – the plants produce stems called runners. I learned perhaps a little late that we’re actually supposed to clip the runners. Though they may seem like they’re making the plant more prolific with more stems, they actually end up taking nutrients away from the main plant and decrease strawberry production. So we got out our scissors and started clipping our runners. There were quite a few of them – some of them had even developed their own roots!
And as I was clipping the strawberry runners, I started thinking,
“Uh oh. I’ve got a runner. In my blog – I have a runner.”
This whole judging section of the blog – there are so many stories to tell and so many verses of Scripture to talk about! Judging is everywhere. But it’s turning into a runner. If I don’t prune it back a little, I’m going to end up with this judging section taking up roots! So we’ll prune it for now and try to come back to it sometime so we can keep feeding the plant!
What, again, was the plant?
I’m so glad you asked!
We started this blog not quite a year ago, and I am still unpacking ‘worthy of confronting’! How crazy is that? I knew the Lord had been showing me some things about whether things were worthy of confronting, but I had no idea it was this much!! It is crazy important.
In conflict, it’s not just how we confront and respond. It’s if we should even be confronting about it in the first place.
Or to go back even further than that – should we even be *thinking* it in the first place!
So that’s our main vine for now: Should I even be thinking this stuff? Much less getting mad at someone else over it and confronting them on it! We’ve explored Philippians 4:8’s true, noble, right, pure… and we’re wrapping up lovely. I added some categories on our menu under ‘worthy of confronting’ to help differentiate all this – I hope you like them!
So what were the main things that stemmed from our discussion of ‘lovely’? (Did you catch that lovely little plant reference? : ))
{warning!} a bit of hyperlink craze is ahead… we’ve been on this topic for a while!
‘Lovely’ seems to mean
- ‘towards brotherly love‘ (πρός + φιλέω)
- having thoughts that inspire love and call forth love in others!
- not being bent on criticism… which includes not judging!
Why shouldn’t we judge?
- Our judgments open us to judgment.
- Our judgments don’t help our brother or sister in Christ.
- Our judgments can compound our deceitful hearts.
- Our judgments of others can make the Lord angry!
- Our judgments may be sin… while the one we’re judging may be right!
- Our judgments can help the Enemy.
Not judging others is truly a blessing – to them and to us!
So what do we do?
- Palliate!
- Seek the Lord. Take personal responsiblity before the Lord to examine our heart - and not others’ hearts!
- Skip judging so we don’t miss an opportunity to care.
- Remember that we are not the judge; we are a friend – or at best, a coach. If we are aware of actual, factual sin straight from the Word (and not our personal preference), we are a good friend to lovingly share with our friend our understanding that the Judge doesn’t like that. But we are not the judge!
What are some principles that help us not judge… but think lovely thoughts?
- the -++ principle
- A weakness is often simply a strength taken to an extreme.
- Beware of the things you love most about someone – those are the things Satan will use to drive you crazy!
Lovely goodness!! Quite the harvest, eh?
Lots to ponder as we seek to set our minds on things that are true, noble, right, pure, and lovely. Up next – admirable!
