Thought For the Day...

Do you ever feel guilty for not being more of a "morning person" in your spiritual life?

Don't! Jesus got alone to study and pray just as much in evening as He did in the morning time.

Book Review #1: REFUEL

Doug Fields' newest book, REFUEL, is an incredible book for those who are struggling to keep the spiritual tank full.

What I LOVED about this book is that it is not a book with another formula to follow that will be the next step in your spiritual journey. Fields' was right on target when he talk about all of the hoops that churches often put in place for people to be "more spiritual." (What does that even mean, anyway?)

If you want to fueled, all you really need is to stop, be quiet and make a connection. God will take care of the rest.

Passing the Baton

Last night, we held our annual Graduation Celebration in which we honor our graduating 8th graders and seniors.  Last year was real tough for me because I saw some students graduate that had been with me since I started at the church.  What was interesting about last night was that, even though I have only been at Crossroads for 6 months, I still found myself getting choked up a bit when it came time to say goodbye to my seniors.

Possibly the coolest thing we did all night was when we brought up a respresentative from the graduating senior class and a representative of the now senior class.  I talked briefly about the Apostle Paul and his "athletic-type" writings.  I wrapped up by using the illustration of track runners running a relay race.  Without being a track runner, even I know that the most important part of the relay is the hand-off.  If you don't get the hand-off right, how fast you run won't matter.  So our two seniors exchanged the baton and, in essence, passed off the responsibility of leadership.  It was a real emotional time for me and for some of the students.

Are you a spiritual loser? - Part 2

If the information in Part 1 of this series describes you, then take heart; you are not alone!  Your problem isn't the lack of desire.  You truly do crave a connection with God.  You want your heart to be full.  You long to know God more deeply and to be more connected to Him.

So what's wrong?  Why does connecting with God seem so difficult to do?

Answer: Unrealistic expectations and an unrealistic plan

Every person you come across is in a different place in their relationship with God.  This lesson could not have become more clear to me than when I started working with students.  I would get frustrated with them because they weren't growing like I thought they should (or if I'm more honest, like I wish I was).  I kept heaping these unrealistic expectations on them and coupled it with an unrealistic plan to "Read the Bible Through In A Year."  To that point in my life (age 20), I still hadn't read the Bible through in its entirety.  Yet, that didn't keep me from challenging them to read it through as 13, 14 and 15 year old students.

How did they do?  They failed.  How did I do?  I failed.  Why?

It was unrealistic.  Growing in your relationship with God is about baby steps.  If you aren't reading your Bible and praying every night, then starting a plan of having a "quiet time" with God for an hour each day is unrealistic.  Start off with 5 minutes.  Read a passage of scripture and then chew on it for a while.  Don't just read the Bible to say that you've done it.  Glean from it.  Abide in it.

Start small, but start somewhere.  As long as you are constantly taking those baby steps you are headed in the right direction.  Don't get discouraged when you miss an appointment with God either.  God understands but don't allow that missed appointment to steer you off the path of a deeper relationship with God.

Where will you start today?  What baby step do you need to take?

Are you a spiritual loser?

It's fair to assume that most of us have heard a sermon or two (or maybe even hundreds) on the importance of connecting with God.  Often the words used in church are things like "quiet time" or "devotions."  You've heard these sermons with their "magic" formulas that we leave feeling convinced that THIS is what I have been looking for all along.  I will finally get my relationship with God on track.  Here is what it really looks like though:

Day 1: You do it.  You check off that you read and prayed.  Way to go!

Day 2: You do it again.  Well done!  Connecting with God is easy, right?

Day 3: You have a "quiet time" for a third day in a row.  Now you're AWESOME!  Well, kind of, but since you read so fast, you don't really remember anything an hour later.

Day 4: You want to do it, but you're so tired that you tell yourself you'll do it later in the day...but you don't.  It was a long day, and now your favorite show is on TV.

Day 5: It's Sunday, so you have yourself a "bye day," because church is basically an extended quiet time where you're getting spiritually filled.  You'll get back on track with your new disciplines tomorrow morning.  (Plus, Monday is the same day you always start your new diet.)

Day 6: Monday.  Too tired after a long weekend.  Need the extra sleep.  Hit snooze button.  Feel a little guilty, but the tiredness drowns out the guilt.

Day 7 and following: During the next week or so, you find some victory with your program, but you meet more defeat.  Guilt reemerges because you're not as consistent as you want to be.  Even when you do connect with God, you're tired and unfocused.  It feels more forced, more like obligation than desire.  You're just going through the motions in order to check off that box that will haunt you if it's empty.

Sound familiar?  I know that there has been more than one time in my life, even recently, where that EXACTLY describes my "spiritual life."  It is things like this that makes me feel like a spiritual loser.  I just can't seem to get it right.

Tomorrow, I'll come back and tie this up with what Doug Fields suggests that we do so that we stop feeling like a "Spiritual Loser."

[Thoughts in this post are inspired by Doug Fields' new book titled REFUEL]