Repeat
It’s hard to see, but we are often creatures of routine. Unkept calendars and schedules often become a redundant prison that keeps us contained until death, and to top it off, the older you get the faster time goes by. We often hear the Christian life is an adventure. Christian literature paints pictures of lives that appear so foreign to our own yet we rarely stop to ask ourselves why. When we read the Bible, we can look past the lives of the historical figures on the page to mine for meaning beyond the words; nuggets of knowledge that will allow us to feel good about ourselves for the time being. The alarm goes off; it’s morning. Time to wake up and do it all over again.
Disconnected
Do you have a routine? For me, the routine starts when my phone begins beeping. I get up and let the dog out to do her business. Then it begins… a series of choices. Repeat or renew? Before we get into this, I need to warn you. A life that is moving forward with God has to indeed be “with God”. Honestly, I think this is the key issue when it comes to truly living. But for most of us our schedules do more of the driving than God. It’s not His fault but ours.
Many Christians attempt to live disconnected from God and instead go by what they know or believe or think. They believe they already know what God would want, they just need to do it. It’s like our lives are a Rubik’s Cube puzzle that we just need to solve and so we start twisting it until we make all the colors match. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s prayer but its superficial, generalized, and riddled with requests for God to bless things; things we already know we want or have already set in motion. It’s more like speaking wishful words into the air than having a real conversation. I hear the words of Paul echoing, “…having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh?”
Alas, living like this keeps us imprisoned. We’re not moving forward. You’re not living your life, your life is living you. And what makes it worse is that people can’t see there is something missing in the equation. So, they look deeper into the Bible to make sense of who they are while missing the point.
John 5:39 says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me…” Listen, Jesus said this to the Pharisees. Are you a Pharisee? Doing rather than being makes us unintentional Pharisees. Living lives trying to do a level best to stay on track for heaven. Nothing more. The alarm goes off; it’s morning. Time to wake up and do it all over again.
Reset
Have you ever been working on a computer, things seem to move along well when all of a sudden everything locks up? If you forgot to save your work it’s a real pill. Thankfully, hours of IT Crowd has taught us that we need to try turning it off and on again; hit the reset button. When we do, things seem to go much better. How do we reset as Christians? It’s simple math. First of all, we need to come to terms with the fact that 6 + 0 does not equal 7. Well of course, right? Yet it seems this is the equation we are trying to make work every day with our lives. We count our fingers and use calculators to try to make 6 + 0 equal 7… it never does. The alarm goes off… you get the idea.
Our spiritual lives are incomplete without the missing integer. You + Nothing does not equal “moving forward”. It only equals “incomplete”, “perpetual motion”, “repeat”. What am I saying? You and I can only “move forward with God”… with God. Oh, how we try to do so without him, don’t we? The only way to break the repeat cycle is by including God. If your life has been on repeat, start with repentance. Imagine how the Christian life would be so different for us if we learned to repent to God (with words) instead of trying to manage or control our sins!
From there, talk to God more about your life. Are you angry or bitter at someone? Talk to God about it. Do you have plans for your family? Talk to God about it. Are you wondering how to handle a person you work with? Talk to God about it. Don’t just operate like you know what He would have you do… remember, God is the one who told Joshua to march around Jericho playing music for 7 days. That’s not exactly the most sensible battle plan. God chose David, a weak little boy among strong brothers, to defeat Goliath. He does amazing things, indeed, but both Joshua and David were people who talked to God. They moved forward because they included him in the equation.
Renew
For 2019 and beyond, I encourage you to stop living your life on repeat. It’s time we make changes in our day to actually converse with God… connect with him about what’s actually happening in our lives… include him and commune with him regularly. Maybe we drop the superficial prayer altogether and get away on Saturday mornings once in a while just to hear him better, and seek to put him first conversationally when we make plans for our future and our days. Perhaps we pause more often to listen for his voice. You + God = Moving Forward. When you do that, your life will begin to look more like Peter James and John and less like a redundant prison. The Pharisees had no functioning relationship with the one they referred to as “Father”. That was their error. Don’t make the same mistake. Get alone with God and be renewed day by day.