D.I.Y.–Do It Yourself.

I love DIY projects: build your own porch, re-pipe your house, remodel your bathroom.  But a man must know his limits.  Some things are NOT DIY projects.  For me that means, no, I cannot remove the .bb from the palm of my son’s hand.  No, I cannot remove 10,000 honeybees from the walls of my garage—even if they do sting me every time I mow.  No, I cannot set my own broken bones after watching a YouTube video.

The Do-It-Yourself approach can save a little money.  But most of us probably should not DIY our medical care.  The same is true for veterinary medicine: I’ve seen men trim hooves, claws, horns, even teeth.  And you can administer all kinds of drugs.  But there are limits.  When our horse Secret had a bad tooth, I never considered pulling it by myself.

The question is: when do you call in a professional—and when do you do it yourself?

One thing you can do yourself is HANDLE YOUR OWN EMOTIONS.  You can take responsibility for your feelings, your anger, depression, or discouragement. We don’t think of that as our responsibility.  More often, we blame circumstances for our feelings.  When we are angry, we blame the thing we are angry about, rather than admitting that we are responsible for our own anger.  David understood:

Emotion is a DIY project: it is no one else’s responsibility. 

Look at the way he talks to his own soul:

“Why are you in despair, o my soul? Why have you become depressed within me? Hope in God for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God” Psalm 42:11.

“the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea for help. The Lord accepts my prayer” Psalm 6:9.

“You will not abandon me to Sheol. You will not allow Your faithful one to see decay” Psalm 16:10.

Lord, remind us that we can usually fix our own emotions, first, by taking responsibility for them, and then by replacing wrong thoughts with right thoughts.

ΑΩ