Forgive me for rambling a bunch here. This is probably one of those I-need-to-write-this but you-don't-need-to-read-it things. I've been in a bit of a spiritual slump of late. My prayer life has been far from energetic. "Existent" is the best word I could use to describe it, which is only to say that's it's better than non-existent. Better, but only barely.
This morning I had the opportunity to be a bit lazy. I didn't have any morning commitments, it was nice and cool, and it would have been real easy to stay in bed quite a while this morning. I've learned that my day goes a lot better if I'll spend time with God very first thing when I get up, but all too often, I instead spend "just a minute" on the computer first. Of course, I'm an IT guy, so I *have* to check and be sure all the network stuff is up and all is well with the world. I mean, after all, the church is depending on me, right? Ahhh…so easy to justify things… And then that minute turns into 10, and then 30, and then suddenly hours are gone. And what happened to spending time with God. I really did have good intentions.
Today, being Saturday, and having that open morning, I further justified that I'd spend a lot of time with God…later. Yeah, right. Then, having morning coffee with my wife, we got into a conversation about how sometimes there's just no feeling at all of having a personal relationship with Christ. Why is it so hard to have that relationship? Well, maybe not putting any time into it is a part of the problem.
So a bit later, I was back on the computer. I still hadn't sat down at my Bible, nor prayed. "later..soon...just another minute" Doing my morning scan of blog feeds, I ran across Stuart Cowen's post, "Before I sit me down to blog." There it was, the slap in the face I needed (thanks Stuart). I put the computer down, and had one of the deepest devotional times I've had in weeks!
As I was praying, my thoughts were somewhat back on the discussion with my wife, about the lack of personal relationship with Christ. I imagined that Christ was sitting with me and we were conversing, face to face, in the flesh. And I asked the simple question "what do you want me to do?" I had in mind answers about deeper theology, or evangelism, or starving children in 3rd world countries, or other such things. Instead, I got such a simple answer -- "talk with me." Of course! If I'm going to spend time talking with Jesus, then that means spending time talking with Him, instead of "doing things." Big duh, right? Spend time, converse, listen. How hard is it to sit and listen instead of going out and doing? OK God, I'm listening…
I stayed away from the computer for quite a few hours.
This evening I was scanning again and ran across Jim Walton's post on "Refocusing." I think that's my story too. It's time to refocus. To sit down...and to listen.
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