|
Making Time To Spend With The One Who Made It
On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your relationship with God today?
As simple as this question is, it can be a surprisingly difficult one to answer (honestly, at least). If you’d asked me this a month ago, without thinking too hard I would have said, “Maybe a five or six?” Now, a month later, I know I was incredibly wrong.
I wasn’t wrong about my number because I was lying—to myself, or to others. I also wasn’t wrong because I misinterpreted how close I was to God. The real reason for my error was not spending enough time with God to remember what a one—or a ten—even felt like. I was numb. My Christian walk had become nothing but a routine; a long-held identity without much substance.
Have you ever been numb to spiritual experience? What did it feel like? (Ha, trick question).
I imagine it probably went something like this: going to bed with the best intentions of waking up early to read your Bible, then sleeping through your alarms, feeling stressed, rushing to work, feeling guilty, saying a little prayer asking for forgiveness, then repeating the process. Day in, day out.
That’s what it was like for me, anyway. For a few months, the only “proper” Bible study I was doing was corporately—at staff worship (yes, I work for the Church—how ironic is that?), at small group, during Sabbath School. In my personal walk with God I felt unmotivated, uninspired. Yet, to everyone else, I was still little-miss-Adventist. I was still a nice person (mostly), still spouting Bible facts here and there as though nothing was wrong.
And that’s the thing, nothing really felt wrong. Logically, I knew I should be worshipping the Creator of the whole universe first thing in the morning. I knew I was “faking it”. But with so many things to do and places to be, I didn’t care enough to change. Numb, cold, dead inside.
Then, in a rapid series of events, it became clear that I needed God in my life. I was grumpy, gossiping more, being judgmental and mean, insecure and afraid. For your sake, I won’t rattle off that same ol’ sermon about priorities, busyness and distractions, and I’ll spare you the details. But what you need to know is how I got my spiritual blood pumping again; how I started feeling those pins and needles running and down my spine that woke me up.
A challenge: 5am every-day. Thirty days. No excuses.
Today I’m on day 21 and it’s slowly changing my life. No, it isn’t happening overnight, but my desire to spend time with God has increased dramatically. Yes, it takes a lot of self-control to go to bed before 10 every night, but I look forward to the mornings now—my sacred hour of time, just me and Him. I crave it.
If you’re spiritually numb or know you should be connecting with God but don’t know how, I encourage you to take up my “30 days of 5am” challenge. Just wake up, pray, and start reading the gospels. It’s that easy. Learn from my mistakes, from my journey. It might sound totally crazy, but waking up at 5am isn’t even half as crazy as not worshipping the one who gives you life every day!
Blessings,
Maryellen Fairfax
|
