Baby Steps: Cleaning My Heart and Home – Day 2

This is what we’re already doing:

Read your Bible each morning

Shine your sink

Day 2 – Get Dressed to Lace-up Shoes

Baby Steps - Day 2

For this baby step we not only need to get dressed all the way to shoes but also fixing your hair and doing your make-up. My Mom is probably one of the best examples I know for this, whether she is going to work, the grocery store or just staying home to clean house she always got fully dressed with her hair and make-up fixed. It was ingrained in me growing up and I am thankful for it now. You might ask, Why on earth do I need to get dressed all the way to wearing shoes!?!?!? especially if your plans are just to stay home and clean or do yard work. My experience as a Pastor’s wife is that I sometimes have little warning that someone is coming over or if Kenny needs me to go somewhere with him. Don’t get me wrong, Kenny does his best to let me know ahead of time but things happen and if I’m not ready when he calls I either scramble around the house trying desperately to get ready and end up stressed or I’m just plain out embarrassed that I was caught with my guard down. Not only this but getting dressed to shoes mentally prepares me for my day. I’m now ready to take on whatever I have planned or whatever made its way into my plans.

There are many different avenues I could go with this baby step in a spiritual sense, and I really had a hard time choosing which path to take. I finally decided to take the most basic idea because, after all, these are baby steps :) The idea I’d like to talk about here is to be prepared. In Ephesians 6:11 we read about putting on the armor of God:

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

I have a note in my Bible that says; “Some Christians only put on the helmet of Salvation for protection and forget the rest of their armor – if you are going to be a solider for Christ you need to come fully prepared.” You can read about each piece of armor we as Christians are to wear in Ephesians 6:11-17. My point is that each and every day we as Christians face the attacks of the devil, we deal with the lures of this sinful world and the only way we are able to stand against those attacks is to be prepared to combat them with scripture.

Another area we are to be prepared in is prepared to go. I have some friends who are currently serving as missionaries on the foreign field. I don’t know if they always knew that they would be missionaries some day or not, but when they were first married they decided that they would live their lives in such a way that when God called them to do something there would be nothing holding them back or hindering them from answering the call. They were determined to live debt-free, simple lives (not depriving themselves) so that they would always be prepared for when God said go.

I am by no means trying to belittle anyone that doesn’t live like these people did, and I’m not saying that everyone will be called to the mission field or to full time Christian service. What I am trying to do is get you to see that God has something for each one of His children to do and we need to be ready, be prepared. If God wants you to hand a track to someone in the grocery store, are you prepared? What about teaching a Sunday School class? Or if someone starts asking you questions about Salvation, are you prepared to show them the way?

If your not prepared in these two areas maybe you should spend more time in God’s Word and ask Him to help you with this. Another good resource is to ask a more mature Christian in your church to help you. Either way our preparation comes from God’s Word, not simply reading what it has to say but also applying it to our lives.

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only…” James 1:22a