Peripheral stuff

I’m sorry this seems to be turning into a daily weather update from northeastern Scotland! Somehow it gives me inspiration.

This morning, for instance, our glorious blue skies of yesterday were blanketed away from us by a thick layer of gray clouds. The wind has picked up a tad and there is no need for sun cream today. Although it does afford a respite from the relentless pursuit of weeds round the garden, my spirit sagged as Dusty and I headed off on our usual walk. I am a warm weather person, craving the sunshine every day, and a gloomy morning threatened to give me a gloomy mood.

As we approached the first wood, I became aware of the chorus of birdsong. They were singing, though the skies were gray. They were singing their hearts out, despite the summer sun having disappeared. It didn’t sound like they had given way to a bout of melancholia. They weren’t singin’ the blues like I was.

They weren’t basing their mood on the weather.

This is a truth I have known ever since the first year I got married and moved to Scotland. “Don’t base your mood on the weather!” “Don’t let a grey sky determine your outlook.” But somehow knowing something in my head doesn’t always sink deep into my heart and soul and become a maxim by which I live.

Thankfully my knowledge of Jesus – as incomplete and naive as it still is, even after all these years – has sunk deep into my heart and soul and I do make the effort to make my love for him a maxim by which I live. The weather is peripheral, but my reaction to it isn’t. If I am going to live a life sold out to Jesus, where my focus is on him and not on any external circumstances or situations, then I need to allow my love for him to affect all the peripherals, so that I love him with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength and all my mind. And that will affect everything I do.

Even though the skies are grey.