Husband left a gel pen...

in his shirt pocket the other day. I put a wonderfully comfy green shirt in the laundry the other day. With the shirt and its pocket that contained the gel pen. Did I mention that the gel pen was a bright and vivid gel-icious blue? The laundry spun and did its work. The gel pen spun and undid its workings.

The result is now a gel pen that will work no more and a wonderfully comfy green shirt with bright and vivid gel-icious blue Rorshach designs. My psyche spun like the laundry.

One tiny error. Two otherwise really good things. Now joined, neither one is any good for their original purpose.

2 Kings 17:33, "They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought."

I cannot get away from this verse this week. The conviction drips from the words and the history that motivated them. God's people intermixed with pagan peoples in marriage and association develop their own form of worship--a syncretistic blend of worship of the Lord and service to man-made idols.

Worship and service both good in their individual states but either one joined to error becomes worthless.

Prompting the self-examination, am I worshiping the Lord but serving my own gods? Have I joined either my worship or my service to error?

Jn 4:24-25, "...the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."