Last thursday, I went and bought a lovely new permanent marker to try out hebrew calligraphy. It works really well. On New Year's Day I tried it on from a passage in Isaiah, "My house shall be called a house of prayer". I made several mistakes. (Ah... I'm grateful God made me chinese. I think Chinese people are gifted a copying things.) My lameds and mems were out of shape, miserable looking. My qophs could do with some work. I made only one letter-for-letter mistake, and that was a he instead of a tav on the bottom line, but that was fixed with some correction ink. Some bets were tall, some were short. The ayins did not look like the same letter. On the whole though, it looked pretty close to the original.
And if my readers think that's bad enough, I was a too intently copying letter-by-letter I did not notice one HUGE mistake. As I reached the end i was thinking, "Well, its only practice.... HEY, why are all my final MEMs at the beginning of words?" AIYO (Chinese exclamation of pain and horror)... I COPIED EVERYTHING BACKWARD!
Here's where it gets even more confusing. Hebrew is written right to left, not left to right. I've gotten used to that, so no way would I write something left-to-right if it's printed out for me right to left, meaning I wouldn't reverse the order. \
To get this passage nicely centered, I copied the hebrew text into windows wordpad and seperated the words into lines, then centered them, then put the organized words into windows paint and drew a nice red line through the middle (to the center the words). So what happened was, somewhere in the process, on the computer, some program couldn't read the right-to-left and automatically read the words left-to-right, reversing (!) the hebrew. Aiyo... why didn't I notice it earlier? Why didn't I check the picture before copying it out.
Yet I don't feel like it was a morning's wasted work. At least I wasn't using kosher vellum and kosher ink, or else that would have been a superb waste. A little bit of permanent marker and art-block... plus I gained good experience in practicing my hebrew calligraphy... even if I wrote the backwards language backwards which is rightward in English but backword in Hebrew... grr...
So, what did I learn?
1) Diligence is checking and double-checking to prevent waste of time and resources
2) Humility includes knowing that whatever talent I have is a gift from God and has nothing to do with my own talent and merit.
3) Diligence is finishing well, and completing a task, not giving up even though it's not the best. There's always something to learn.
4) Stewardship includes wisely taking care of the time, treasure, talents, and truths God has given me and
5) Generosity is not selfishly using God's gifts and mercies for my own gain but to bless others.
6) Hebrew is written right to left!
7) Orderliness is arranging my life to bring glory to God!
Right now, I'm in the midst of organizin my room, which is a miniature food studio, haberdashery, sewing room, library, (used to be a music practice studio too, with three big instruments!), recycling center, crafter's haven, costume wardrobe, writer's retreat, etc. How can I arrange this small little room with 10-11 pieces of furniture, including around 10 drawers, 4 cupboards, 17 shelves, 1 folding desk, 1 bed, 1 round little display table, and 1 trundle... to bring glory to God?
I do have many things with lots of potential to be made into something beautiful! But I need them organized so that I know what I have. I need to organize my time, so that I can do what I need to do first, and I do need to start making things to give away or sell so that I don't end up hoarding pretty bits of wrapping paper stingy.... sorry... stringy bits of yarn and fiddly bits of cardboard.
I could give things away, but children in this country have so many pretty things that can be bought easily with little money. I do wonder about selling the crafts I make (like Pesach greeting cards) as a home business, but that would take my time, and I truly do realise that the best use of my time is in the presence of God and anything apart from God's presence is really not worth it in light of eternity.
Even reading craft books, cooking, watching Bible movies, writing for my blog, DOES IT FEED MY MIND OR MY SPIRIT? I mean, many non-sinful actvivities are useful and not a blatant waste of time, and do help people. Two questions I can ask.
!) Will I look back in ten year's time and regret spending time on this?
2) Can I imagine Yeshua doing such a thing God doing such a thing with me?
3) Is God pleased with it? Does it glorify God?
4) Does it feed my spirit?
5) What are its fruit? Does it benefit others?
6) Is my conscience at ease.
7) Is this being a wise steward of my time, knowing that every day I live is a gift from God and I have no right to it?
And like questions...
Just because something, like cooking for the family, doesn't feed one's spirit but one's body doesn't mean its a waste of time. Yeshua spent 30 years being a carpenter. Let's take a case example of using these questions
Case #1:
Sleeping an extra two hours every day.
1) I will regret wasting my youth sleeping too much
2) Yeshua was an diligent worker and a early riser who took mornings (and whole nights) communing with the Father.
3) Nope.
4) Nope, my flesh.
5) Eye-bags. grouchiness, wasted time,
6) Nope.
7) Nope.
Anyway, you'd get the picture. My ramblings have gone on long enough :)
YHWH bless you, preserve you, and root you in Him throughout this year. May He save your soul.
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