Setting your eye

It has come to my attention that we have violated the rights of a certain sect of our community.

We've slandered dogs everywhere. How so, you might ask?

Have you ever watched a dog swim? Do they not move easily in water? Do they not move?

Then why do we call this thing that young swimmers often do, dog paddling? Do these young swimmers not stay pretty much where they are? Not moving except for hands doing their things and legs flailing away?

Dogs slandered, I'm telling you.

This came to my mind because I slept late this morning. I slept late this morning because I was, well, exhausted. My hips are screaming. My legs are legless. I'm just plain old-fashioned tired. Why? Because I have worked and worked and worked. I've thrown away and I've burned and I've moved and I've picked up and I've loaded and I've prepared for a garage sale and a move and all those other things.

And yet this morning when I looked back on the week, it looked like I had done exactly, uh, nothing. I've dog-paddled (sorry Sammie, Logan, Tweety, Paris and all those millions of dogs in the world) this week.

There's no new fence at our new place of residence. There's one room of new flooring while other rooms are torn and waiting. I've moved some things but it seems there are mountains to be moved. The moving sale is tomorrow, but I've had three or four persons already coming to buy things (and what exactly do these people do for a living that they can come on a beautiful Thursday afternoon to buy "old" things, as if we were selling "new" things?)

So we've worked so hard my hips don't work and yet after all this time it appears that we've not made it very far. All we've done is not move very, very hard.

In Ezekiel 21, the first couple sentences we read: "And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places..."

I love thy expression: Set thy face toward Jerusalem. In the New Testament, Jesus did all these things then when it came time, he "resolutely set out for Jerusalem."

Sometimes in our lives, we need to resolutely set out for" or we need to set our faces. We need to make a plan and accomplish it. We need to quit paddling and start swimming.

Have you been paddling lately?

Have you wondered where you're going lately and you're going nowhere?

It's time, my friends, to set your eye, your mind, you bodies on the Jerusalem's in your live and get 'er done.

Dogs everywhere will applaud you.