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
