Right for Me -- Musings 1

What is right for me, may not be right for someone else. I think this is why the scriptures are not super specific. Times change, circumstances change, ideas change, paradigms change and specifics change. Overall principles stay constant, but application of these principles vary from individual to individual.

Let's take cleaning the house: the overall principle of keeping a clean house is the same for everybody : you should keep your house clean and orderly. How you actually go about doing that varies greatly from person to person -- some people like to clean in the morning, others at night, some people like to or are able to do a lot of cleaning in one sitting, others have to spread it out throughout the week, some people have a lot to clean a big house etc. Some people are just naturally good at it and enjoy it. Others (like me) have to learn to make it a priority and clean up after themselves as they go along and it may take some time. ( Flylady is a great helper in this regard). The specifics don't really matter so much as long as the overall principle is kept -- clean house. Of course some ways may be better than others, but each individual must decide how far they want to go and how much they can do since we all have so many ways we could spend our time.

Another principle is to educate yourself. We are happy and excited when we can learn and do new things, but what we learn and how we learn it, will vary immensely from individual to individual. One person may love music and spend a lot of time with that. Someone else may love philosophy or art. Someone else may feel an urgent desire to learn how to garden for survival and be driven toward the goal of self-reliance. Another may want to learn how to sew, scrapbook, cook, clean, organize, read, write, science, mathematics etc, etc, etc. Just because our passions may be different doesn't mean that one is right and one is wrong. People can do 2 completely different things and be right, and keep the overall principle of educating oneself.

Another interesting twist to this idea is also that what may be right for one, may not be right for another. An example in my own life is sewing -- I taught myself how to sew when I first married and was pregnant with my first baby. I love to sew, but right now my time is taken caring for my growing children. Although I would love to make them all sorts of things, my time is much better spent cleaning, cooking, and teaching them, so in a way, for me sewing a whole bunch would be wrong, but it was wonderful for me when my time was a little more free and I was learning a new skill.

This is also why it is so important to not judge people or to compare yourself with others. You just don't know what is going inside people or even what is going on in their lives. What you think is awful or wonderful, may be just the opposite for them. So this is a great thing for me to always remember: Just do what is right for me and don't worry about everybody else. They are doing their best. The Lord loves them as much as he loves me and he will guide them just as he guides me. The only person I can control is myself, and the only sure way is to follow the Spirit, or my heart, whatever you want to call it, so that the Lord can guide me and help me along. Then I will be satisfied with where I am and what I've done. That is hard enough without worrying about everybody else!!