Do The Next Thing

Elisabeth Elliot often quotes an old Saxon poem that contains the phrase, "do the next thing".  This  has been on my mind a lot lately.  It is so easy to get bogged down and as we view our surroundings we wonder, where do we begin?  Such simple, such logical, such wise advice - do the next thing.  We find the same concept in the quote, "inch by inch life is a cinch, yard by yard life is hard". 

So advice to myself today is "do the next thing" do what makes sense.  Prioritize.  Good simple example in the homemaking arena would be if my bedroom were a mess.   First, make the bed.  Amazing, looks better already.  Now I feel encouraged to go on and do the next thing, pick up the dirty socks on Precious Husband's side of the bed : )  Get the picture?

This morning I cleaned out my silverware drawer and the jar pictured above was in that drawer.  It is a baby food jar filled with rice and pecans.  Many years ago a good friend gave me the jar and gave me this explanation of the lesson of the jar:  if I put in the big pecans first there will be room to put in all the rice but if all the rice goes in first there will be no way to fit in the pecans.  The pecans of course represent the important, the priorities of our life and the rice is all the other little daily things that also call for our attention.  The jar was to remind me of the spiritual priorities of putting the Lord first and then there would always be time for the other things.  So true. So true. Such a needed reminder. 

I cleaned the drawer and returned the very old jar of pecans and rice to continue to remind me to do the next thing and to do the important things first.

I noted once on an earlier blog that I wanted to start a journal about the history and/or reason of some of the things around my home so that someday when my girls have the joy of going through our things maybe they will understand their mother a little bit better if they know the history of things they come across.  Like the jar full of pecans and rice.