UNTANGLE FROM THE ENDS

I gave myself a break from the Sermon on the Mount study this weekend. I realized that I had been writing to specific points every day for seven weeks straight. Every day without a break. And suddenly my mind balked and said it wanted a day or two off.

So I did. (I'll pick up again with the study on Monday.) Besides, a side thought had occured to me that I wanted to muse upon. I think, in the future, I'll be posting daily entries for The Measure on weekdays and use the weekends for either breaks or thoughts on other things.

I should say something else about The Measure Dealt To Me, though. I've been writing about 1,000 words per post on this study, but have come to realize that for some of them I still haven't said enough. So what will be happening "behind the scenes" as I go along is that those posts will likely be expanded with additional illustrations and personal experience. So the final book, when it is completed, will be much more than these blog posts.

The discipline of writing daily to specific points has been very good. And it's given me a lot of food for thought. Which brings me to the title of this post.

I was washing my hair the other day, and reached the stage of working the conditioner in. For a long time, I'd had the habit of putting the conditioner on the top of my head - at the roots, and then working it through, hoping it would disentangle my very fine hair. When you have light, fine hair, it gets tangled very easily, and just yanking a comb or brush through it only pulls it out. Now I've known for a long time the instructions recommend putting the conditioner on the ends first and then working back up the strands. Yet, I'd persist with the top down practice.

However, lately, I've finally got that turned around, starting from the loose ends. And of course, this works much better, and makes it easier to get the whole hair shaft treated with the conditioner. Because by untangling the loose ends first, it makes it easier to separate them upward toward their roots. Working downward always resulted in the places that most needed untangling being the last to be separated.

Yes, there is actually a spiritual / psychological lesson here. Because that's the way my mind works at times.

What I realized is the importance of making changes by starting with the small things. Or I should say, saw something I already knew from a new perspective. Everyone always does say "Start small" but when faced with so many things that need changing, it's hard to choose a starting point. But as I was standing there, working the conditioner into the loose ends first and feeling them separate and untangle, it was like a revelation. You cannot effectively condition the roots of the strand until the small loose ends have been freed from their tangles. Massage the roots all you want, but if the conditioner hasn't freed the loose ends, the tangles still remain.

It's just one element in some self-evaluation I've been doing. So, I'm starting with some small things, and am working my way toward some bigger matters. After all, God actually is interested in our "small stuff" as much as He is interested in our "more important" things.