Back To Home Page To Archives - Spring of Life - H. Roger Bothwell Taking Inventory One of life’s great chores is to periodically stop to ask ourselves why we are doing certain things. It is so easy to become a victim of routine. We get up each Monday and do Monday’s list of “to dos.” We do the same Tuesday and each of the following days. When we get to the weekend we follow a routine of church and other activities without much thinking about why. It is just the way we live our life. There is an expectation of others and of ourselves that we do these things. But why? Why do we do these things? Who says we have to? What force drives us to conform to the past? Who says we should not reconsider the list and alter the familiar if it no longer provides enrichment to our lives or to the lives of those about us? It is true there are certain things that should never change. Principled behavior and Christ-like attitudes that we have worked for should only be further reinforced. But so often we do things merely because that is the way we have always done them. Our religious behaviors, customs and patterns have often been passed on to us by our parents or grandparents and perhaps certain things were done because of certain needs a hundred years ago. It behooves every thinking person not to change for change’s sake but to change if circumstances no longer demand we continue the old way. I am not advocating that we radically alter our lives merely for the sake of being a revolutionary. Some people have made the mistake of throwing away the old and having nothing worthwhile to put in its place. That is a great mistake. I am just recommending that we pause along lives busy way to ask ourselves “why.” We just might get a good answer for continuing the way we have been. The benefit will be not that we have changed but that we know what we are doing and why and that in itself makes life richer and fuller. I'm Roger Bothwell and my address is hrb1@tiac.net or 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453. Thank you for your support of our faith ministry. Past devotionals can be accessed at Archives