August 25 - Doorframes of your Homes

August 25 - Doorframes of your Homes
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

What are some things that you take with you everywhere? Nowadays, electronics keep us connected so the cell phone is important.  Most of us carry a wallet of some sort.  Purses and briefcases and even our cars carry items we can’t imagine not having close to us.  Do you have one item that travels with you everywhere you go?  I can’t go anywhere without a notepad. I don’t always use it, but there will always be one somewhere close.  My father always carried 3x5 cards.  They fit perfectly in his shirt pocket.  I still have the sculpted card holder my mother made for him from clay, so they were on his desk at work.  He had a stack in his desk at home and some beside his bed.  If Dad needed to jot down a note, he knew exactly what he was looking for.

For Dorothy, it was Toto. He went everywhere with her and when she went to Oz, he was her link to home.  Other than the necessities we carry to get through the day (phone, wallet, notepad), sometimes we carry things with us when we travel that are our link to home.  Dorothy’s was her dog; I like to travel with my animals, though they never really make it easy for me.  For the Israelites it was their connection to God.

The commandments were written on the doorframes of their homes and then were written on tiny scrolls and tied to their hands or foreheads. They never wanted to be without that connection, no matter where they might be. The Laws were a great gift and so to honor the Lord, they were called on to make them such a part of their lives that they would never be apart from them.

If we carry things today that connect us with our physical home, what are things we can carry that will remind us of our relationship with God?