Two Weeks Later

Day 1: October 17, 2012
Experiment began.  Started well in the morning.  Committed not to exceed a certain amount of TV/movies, internet browsing, etc.  Evening found me glued to The Weather Channel and weather website tracking the progress of a potential tornado.  Scheduled sleep hours thrown off due to not wanting to go to a storm shelter in my pajamas.


Day 2: October 18, 2012
Started well again.  A few hours later, curled up under a blanket in front of the television with nausea and dizziness.  Stayed up too late because rice takes a long time to cook.

Day 3: October 19, 2012
Didn't even start well -- woke up with a piercing dehydration headache from the day before's lack of food and water.  Stayed up late because of company.  Ate too many cookies.


A few days later found me looking up at a huge (metaphorical) brick wall.  Here I was, striving to make Jesus Christ my first priority, and I was not becoming radiant.  I did not have a gentle and quiet spirit.  I was not experiencing healing.  I was less healthy and more riddled with anxieties, annoyances and disappointments than ever.  (If you want to become convinced that spiritual warfare exists, try this experiment.)

I took a walk under the stars, promising to pray through this impasse.  I could feel it; I could taste it; victory was at my fingertips.  And then came the whisper of Christ in my heart: Run.

Probably a small command for most of you, but honestly, a solid run for more than about a minute would be nigh miraculous for me.  "Jesus, I can't run."  I turned my steps back toward the dorm.

Run.

I turned around.  I didn't start running right away, but walked until I had undergone sufficient mental preparation; then I started running.

I made it barely a hundred feet.  As I fumbled for my extremely rapid pulse, swallowing back tears, His voice came: Kendall, you can't run.

"I know!  That's what I tried to tell You!  Why did You ask me to?"

I can.

Though it came in only those two words, I understood the whole message: Why are you trying to break through this wall?  It's impassable.  You cannot make yourself like Me.  Only I can do that.  Beating up against this wall will not break down the wall; it will break you.

Why are you limiting yourself with flimsy human rules that do not deal with your heart?  Why are you trying to clean up your outside, when I'm waiting here longing to renew you from the inside out?

Why are you trying to run...when you can't?

One of the many amazing things about this little experiment is that when something I read in Scripture or hear in a sermon grabs my attention, I never hear it only once.  Within a very short amount of time, I hear the same concept from no fewer than two individual, totally unconnected sources.  It's not as though I go out and Google what the Lord spoke to me about; He just does it Himself.

And one thing I have heard over and over and over -- from different places and different sources that I wasn't even looking for -- is this:

"Our old self was crucified with [Christ] so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." (Romans 6:6)

I have always been very tempted to legalism, which means I can also get extremely caught up in the letter of the law while completely neglecting the spirit (just ask me how I've managed to have multiple relationships without ever dating). So when I began this experiment, I started with a lot of rules: Don't watch more than one movie a week, don't get on Facebook more than once a week, have an hour of Bible study in the morning and an hour in the evening, and so on.  And I became so caught up in those rules and wanting to follow them perfectly that the whole experiment became about the rules...not Jesus Christ.

There were definitely practical changes that needed to be made in my life to create more time to cultivate intimacy.  If I put as much time into my friendships as I'd been putting into my relationship with Jesus, I'd always be having "I-haven't-seen-you-in-forever" chats.  There's things that need to go.  But it can't become about getting rid of those things.  It has to be about Him.

Because when I sleep in an hour or get on Facebook on an "off" day, sure, I felt sheepish.  But nothing threw my days off like neglecting time at the feet of King Jesus.  Nothing killed a Bible study quicker than going in with a "check-it-off-my-list" mentality.

I want to reassure you of just one thing, my friend, that you may wonder from time to time from the midst of this crazy whirling thing called life.

It works.

When I opened my Bible hungry for God, asking for His guidance, direction, and voice...I have never seen an hour fly by faster.  I have never had such victorious, peaceful days.  I've never seen anxiety and peevishness flee that quickly.

Christianity's practical.  Christianity works, because our old self died with Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, and if we believe it, we are dead to sin, and sin is not our master.

How often do we reckon that as truth?  Not nearly as often enough.  How often do we reckon all of Scripture as truth?  Not nearly often enough.

So my two weeks are over.  But I'm not done, not hardly.  I'm just getting started.

Or rather...He's just getting started.

Feel free to join.

The Purchased Life Experiment

I haven't been here recently.  I could give you the typical reasons: I'm busy, so much schoolwork, no time for my little blog and bloggy friends.

Those would be lies.

There are two reasons I haven't written.  They may seem to conflict, but they don't.  I can't explain it.  I just know it to be true.

The first reason is that I have to write what the Lord is currently working in my life, and what He's been working these past few months is far too intimate to share with the internet.  The words He has spoken to me are -- at least for now -- just between me and Him.

The second reason is that I've had a serious lack of inspiration.

I don't know how that works -- that He's been so active, but yet I have nothing to talk about.  He's been speaking, but am I listening?  Am I implementing it?

I don't think so.

I think I'm too busy wasting time, wasting my life.

I want more.  I want to grow every day.  And then I fritter away my hours surfing the internet, watching television, or doing any other number of things that are so unimportant and frivolous.

So what do I really want?

Do I want to grow in Jesus Christ, or do I want to be a mindless time waster?  Because with the activities my time and energy are directed toward, it sure seems like the latter is what I really want.  And that is both sad and pathetic.

So I've decided to try a little experiment.

For the next two weeks, I'll give the best hours of my day to Jesus Christ.

It will have to look a little different depending on the day because of school.  But what if every day, for the next two weeks, I jealously guard my time with Christ?  What if I give Him more than a passing 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening -- the paltry amount He's been receiving for most of my life?  What if I take practical steps to avoid Facebook, avoid television, and spend that time diving deeper into the Word and reading about people from Christian history who truly understood the purchased life?

Would things be different?  I can't imagine they wouldn't.

So starting tomorrow (Wednesday is an awkward time to start, but why wait another day?), I'll completely revamp my life for the next two weeks.  You won't see me on Facebook much.  If you call or text me during certain hours I've set aside, you won't reach me.  If nothing at all changes within my heart during that time, I'll join the multitudes who have deemed this lifestyle too "radical."  I'll go back to my little 30-minutes-a-day, don't-drink-swear-or-have-sex life.

But honestly, I just don't see that happening.

To be honest, it was extremely hard for me to make this decision to even try it.  Leslie Ludy compares it to surrendering a handful of worthless pebbles for a truckload of priceless jewels, and here I am, clinging to my pebbles.  It's pathetic, the things we seek after more than Him.  The things we are unwilling to give up to get more of Him.

If I fail to hold up my end of this, I'll be straight with you.  I'm not going to sit here and tell you that spending more time with Christ doesn't make a difference, if I didn't spend more time with Christ.  I'm sure all of you know how easy it is to say we're going to start something, and then completely neglect to actually do it.  And that's part of the reason I'm announcing this experiment to the bloggy world.  Now you know.  I can't pretend I didn't decide to do this.  I have all of you who know full well that I did.

So pray for me, friends, as I embark on this journey.  I'll be sure to let you know in two weeks what has happened.

"I have often wished that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists! God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: the man who would know God must give time to Him! He must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance. He must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end. So did the saints of old, the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets and the believing members of the holy Church in all generations. And so must we if we would follow in their train! May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the kingdom like little children through the marketplace, chattering about everything but pausing to learn the true value of nothing?" | A.W. Tozer