Stuck

Gimli loves to sit up on the back of our chair, but sometimes he finds himself in a precarious situation. Slowly he will slide between the cushion and the back of the chair and can't get himself out. At first he doesn't mind because this is actually pretty comfortable for a while. But when it's time to go outside or eat dinner, he realizes his predicament: he's stuck.

Sometimes, I feel stuck in my relationship with God. It usually happens slowly- Life happens, I get busy, I get preoccupied, and then before I know it, months have gone by without me truly connecting with God. I feel distant from Him, His voice feels silent. I find myself thinking and doing things that I know are not honoring to Christ, yet I fall into it more easily than usual. When I finally do try to pray, I am filled with guilt over the time that has passed since I last spent time with Him. I don't know what to say. The enemy tempts me to hide in shame. He whispers in my ear, "God doesn't want to talk to you. You haven't prayed in how long? Wow, that's bad. You're obviously a pretty lousy Christian. He's so disappointed in you."  Sometimes I believe him. Sometimes I give in to this lie about God's character. I hide from God in shame and embarrassment over my sin. The cycle continues- I am stuck.

There is only way to get out of this shame pit: Truth. The truth is that God is not disappointed in me. He longs to spend time with me because He loves me. He isn't waiting in anger for me to pray or read my Bible. When I pray, He isn't thinking, "Took you long enough." He's thinking- "I'm so glad to spend time with you!"  The truth is, no matter what is going on in my life, no matter what sin I am struggling with, the best thing for me to do always is to seek the Lord and spend time with Him. His love for me is not dependent on how good of a Christian I am. He loves me because He loves me.

He pulls me out of the pit I'm stuck in by reminding me how much He loves me. I never have to be stuck again because Jesus died so that I can be reconciled to God forever. I never have to hide in shame because my sin has been forever taken care of.  What a glorious truth! 

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39

Feeding on the Wrong Things

I've mentioned before that Virginia is a living vacuum cleaner. She will eat anything. When I'm cleaning the kitchen, she will wait by my feet for the crumbs to fall to the ground off the counter so she can eat every little morsel. It's hard for me to understand why she would want to eat day old bread crumbs and dried cheese, but she can't get enough of it. I swear we feed her plenty of dog food! She does not need this extra food, it has no nutritional value, and has the potential to make her sick if she gets the wrong thing, like a little piece of jalapeño or pepperoni. She doesn't know the difference between good food or bad food for her, so we tell her "NO!" when she goes for the bad kind. At that point its up to her if she's going to trust us or give into the temptation to ignore us and go for the crusty bread she longs for. Usually, she goes for the bread.

I'm tempted to feed myself on the wrong things too. The world around me tells me messages every day about what is true, valuable and worthwhile. The world says, "Your happiness is all that matters." I see the portrayed in tv shows, the movies, on the internet, the news, political policies, and our culture as a whole. Lots of the messages I hear are easy to dismiss, but others can creep into my mind and convince me of lies without me perceiving it. Lies like, "You're wardrobe isn't good enough- you need new, nicer clothes. You don't want to look like an old lady do you?", or "Why on earth have you chosen to only have 1 car?! Who can live with only 1 car!", or "Why would you want to go into the ministry? You'll never make much money and you'll never be able to change people." If I neglect to read my Bible, it can be easy to think these lies are fact instead of what they are. When screen everything I see, hear, or read through the truths of the Bible, when these lies creep into my head, its so much easier to recall the truth and refuse to let the lies linger in my mind. If I dwell on lies, I'll start to believe them and act on them. If I dwell on Scripture, I'll believe it and act on it. I'm not saying its wrong to watch TV or to put our fingers in our ears and ignore the world around us. If we do that, we'll never be able to reach those who don't yet believe in Jesus with His message. I believe our primary "food" should come from the Word of God, so when worldly lies inevidably come across our minds, we'll be prepared to fight them off.

Virginia may not know what food is good and bad for her, but I do know what's good and bad for me to ingest. My prayer is that God would bring truth to my mind when lies creep up, and help me to make reading the Bible a top priority in my life.