The more you have, the more maintenance requirements you have to live with. Walking through our little ranch (just 5 acres), you would be surprised at the weeds, thorns, and thistles. My tractor is employed for more important things. If you don’t maintain the yard, the weeds will win. When you have a lot of equipment, you must use everything often enough to keep the maintenance monster at bay. Otherwise, simple maintenance items turn into significant expenses.
Hint: Don’t leave old gas in your yard engines
unless you put in some additives that keep the fuel fresh for a few months.
Maintenance mode is something we all deal with every day. Checking the air in your tires, fluids, tune-ups, moss, bugs, cobwebs, vacuuming that most oversized air filter often (your carpet), or any number of items you must handle so you can enjoy a longer life.
My brother comes along just in time to help with these items and show me some tricks to make it easier to deal in maintenance mode as I keep living more trips around the sun than I have any right to live!
But maintenance mode is more than keeping your mechanical and home life in order. Relationships! Ditto. Spiritual Life! Ditto. Keeping good friends? Super Ditto!
To keep my truck running past 358,000 miles as I aim for one million miles? Regular maintenance and ongoing updates. Yep. Everything requires maintenance!
Lest I Meddle
There are many areas of life where maintenance is constant and needful. But there are more important areas than others, which are too easily ignored in our crowded space and time. Why? We are too easily distracted, and we just don’t care.
Social Media has given us a chance to connect and reconnect, even though the platforms are essentially a waste of time and space. Relationships are so necessary. From present times to those years long ago, there are many we need to focus our connection. These windows into the life of others create access points as we’ve never had before. Though I know some who never, never…never…ever have any plan on using the platforms, I applaud those who manage their time spent productively.
Walking alone is a short-timers view of making it through this world successfully.
Our Spiritual Condition of life has changed since 2020 – you know, that year of “perfect vision?” We’ve lost ground, gone underground, and have hidden this portion of life from public view. I understand the times, but I also know these are times we should be anchored and not adrift. How do we repair our Spiritual relationship? It may be tweaking our minds or undertaking a massive overhaul of what we’ve put out there for all to see. Being at church is therapy for the soul! Fellowship with others is necessary. You receive and give that which you need as a Spiritual Person.
More important than anything else is your Spiritual Condition!
One final meddling thought, and this speaks to each of us equally. Our Health requires a lot of maintenance. None are perfect, and each of us has unique challenges. These past few weeks of hard labor on my little piece of heaven I call home shows me that it may be more than I can enjoy as life ages out. Since my auto accident, my lower back has been struggling. Problems spiral outward from the center of this gravity well. My shoulders, knees, and even my hands, achy are they! All of this tricks my mental outlook, which is not a safe place to be.
We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed, and the important things will not change if we keep our priorities in proper order.
~S. Truett Cathy
Where Do You Find Your Priorities?
Each of us is unique, and we find our priorities differently. Unique? Definitely! We each have different purposes, but we all work from the same foundation.
During strained times, our priorities keep us focused. When times are good, it’s easier to grow from this solid base. How will we be viewed when we reach the end of life? It matters. Yes. It matters. Your life example will be a challenge for many – how and how not to do it. Which example do you want to leave?
As my dad was leaving this world, and he was well-loved and missed by so many, he had one thing to say from his radiated vocal cords: “I’m Saved!” We’ll know him for his humor, singing voice, faithfulness, and love, but we’ll remember his declaration at the end.
Jesus laid out his approach to living a Spiritual Life in his famous Sermon on the Mount. This discourse is one of many, but it’s also the first one recorded as he began his ministry.
What if we had this foundation to share abroad as we begin our life’s calling?
Midway through his teaching, he shares the essential foundation of this Sermon. He’s dealt with many topics and has more to cover, but this may be the most critical piece of knowledge.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Matthew 6:33 NKJV