Do you ever get tempted with the idea that you are too busy for to be faithful? Too busy to practice your faith? And in that confession you become frustrated and upset with yourself and with the life that you are living?
For many of us we believe that our faith is a private, personal matter. It's no one business by my own--well at least its between God and me. No one should worry about how I manage my faith or how I find the time to be faithful. . .
Perhaps like me, you have had a busy couple of weeks and you find that the regular activities of the faith, those that you cherish and affirm on Sunday with the Body of Christ, aren't happening as regularly as you'd like.
Perhaps you mean well. Perhaps you truly love God and would never confess to moving God to a distant second-seat in your life. . . But that happens from time to time. The events of the day taking priority over the devotion we need. And when it does, the response that brings us back into faithfulness feels like an impossibility. It feels like climbing Everest rather than just walking with Jesus along the path of life.
On my way home from an appointment with Emma's guidance counselor I listened to a new podcast that I have come to appreciate. The host, in her regular gentle tone and timber, confessed that she likes to find space and time to travel to the beach which is near her home. Doing so, she says, is part of her practices of Christian faithfulness. It is part of her devotional time with the Lord that she loves. The 15 or 20 minutes it take her to get to that beach is time when she can contemplate how God is at work in her life.
Then as she thinks about how God has been close to her this week, and notices the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit, the two of them (She and God) can talk about how to remedy any shortcomings and grow closer together relationally. . . But this week that has not happened and she confessed this failing on the episode that I listened to.
She said that she has been trying to get to the beach and yet cannot do it and was becoming quite discouraged and frustrated by her apparent lack of devotion to God. The things that occupied her time were meaningful and worthy, yet something did not feel right because she and God did not walk together this week as they normally did. . . I wonder if you know something that feeling?
For a few days the host of the show said that she was irritated by this fact and began to judge herself and judge those who were keeping her away from her faithfulness-practices. But then she finally got to take the way. . . and as she took it, God and she spoke again.
God reminded her that the busy life that she had was part of His plan. He was there. Why did she believe that God would only walk with her as she went to the beach? Why not think that God was close at hand at every interval of life?
I wonder again if you and I might learn something from her lesson?
Perhaps through the business of the week, through the pressure and commitments, God might be wondering where you've been? . . . Why did you think that he was only waiting to walk with you toward your own 'private beach?' Maybe God was there in the hectic-ness of life?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment