National headline: Miracle: a Clean Refrigerator! You wonder, is “miracle” the right word to describe this? Well not for many of you, I’m sure. But this post is more about getting myself to do something I should do that I keep putting off, and I know most of us have that challenge! So if your whole environment is clean, de-cluttered and orderly, just substitute in whatever you struggle with getting done for my example here, and see if you too can break the impasse!

I have a list of eight categories that I try to get something done in everyday. I don’t think I’ve gotten all eight done in any given day yet, but I believe in lofty goals, and in striving for betterment. Especially the “improving some area of my house everyday” category suffers at the hands of categories that are more compelling to me. I even changed it’s original heading from “housecleaning” to make it seem more appealing, but it still lags behind.

So trying to get my rear in gear, the next list I made was what motivated me. The list included self-respect, spirituality, creativity, leaving a legacy, and opportunities to travel. Still, I’d choose to do practically anything over cleaning my house.

This is where I was inspired by reading a book titled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which is also considered the Christian Science textbook (see it here on Amazon). Along with the Bible, I use this book a lot in my work as a practitioner, and read through it in an ongoing fashion, much like children playing in a revolving door go around and around again. I read through it and then immediately turn around to read through it again. I had just started it yet again, when pages 1 – 4 blew me away once more, but in a new way. You know a book is good when you incessantly keep getting fresh inspiration from it.

What caught my eye first was on page one when we are told, “Desire is prayer: and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded [sic] and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds.” I realized that my eight categories are not just a perpetual to do list, but actually they represent my desires. I kept trying to mold and exalt them, but maybe that was God’s job. Maybe if I simply trusted Him, He’d take care of my list! If God was supposed to be in charge of everything I thought I was to be doing, than what was my job?

Well, the first sentence on page one says, “The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, – a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.” So here is how I translated that sentence to myself this time: The prayer that gets done whatever you want to get done (my/your desire) is by this to do list (my/your actual job!): 1) being completely, indelibly convinced that God can handle it, 2) a growing, perceptive understanding of God as infinite, ever-present all-powerful good: Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle itself!, and 3) consciously loving based on this amazing truth of God instead of based on little ‘ole me and what I want.

I realized this three point list eclipsed my eight point daily to do list. If I did these three things and trusted God with those eight, I’d be getting somewhere! And wow, have I found this to be true.

I turned the page and found my motivator as well. I read, “Action expresses more gratitude than speech.” I have usually read this as: if you are really grateful you’d show it practically instead of just verbally. But what I saw then was, hey, wouldn’t you be more grateful if you actually did something instead of merely articulating it? This was a whole new twist for me.

I also read, “we cannot conceal the ingratitude of barren lives.” Now anyone who reads this blog knows my life is not barren, but full to bursting with good! But this housecleaning category surely wasn’t bearing any fruit at all, and wasn’t that what barren meant? If there are areas where I can’t seem to do what I should do, I’m just being ungrateful!

So what should I be grateful for, besides obviously that I have a house to clean? I’m certainly glad we don’t live in squalor. But I’m definitely not grateful for the messes we do have, and I surely would be really grateful to have our home deeply, regularly, completely clean. Will I experience that gratitude by saying so? No: by action!

The first day after this revelation, I cleared my desk, and that felt so good! The next day, I took several hours and really cleaned my refrigerator until it spotlessly gleamed. I took everything out and scrubbed; serious elbow grease was required on that spilled cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving. I tossed out everything that had only an inch left or I hadn’t used recently. You may wish to harken back to some former photos of my refrigerator on this blog – bottom photo here and an early blog here to fully appreciate that there is actually shelf space now, and remarkably, the light from the top actually gets to the bottom!

So what if the tracks of the veggie drawers no longer work and this thing is almost 18 years old; so what that it should be replaced, if only I could find one I liked or had the money for it. These same pages claim, “Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more.” I’m really grateful now for this revitalization of my old refrigerator and a new one will eventually follow when it is right.

Ebulliently rejoice with me that I can actually see what is there and remember to use delicious things such as the luxurious Williams Sonoma condiments we got for Christmas! It may sound ridiculous, but each family member, upon opening the refrigerator, just stands there gawkily basking in the glory of the difference. God is glorified.

When I focus only on glorifying Him, miracles – which are actually divinely natural, of course – happen. He truly can be trusted with my desires. It’s much better when I focus on Him while He focuses on me. And I have found pure delight in being enormously grateful of pleasing results whenever moved to take action in any “barren” aspect in my life. As ripples reverberate outward from impact, the radius is widening. I am already “receiving more” as promised! The wasteland of my closet is next, while the amazing horizon of regularly getting all eight things done everyday appears conceivable now, approaching at warp speed, as only God can accomplish.