Work has been busy lately.
Not just the usual lots to do, art projects to make, evaluations to chart busy. I'm talking stressful, over time, sleeping when you have free time busy. I love my job but with the added health stresses as of recent, I'm questioning my sanity. There are a few days that I honestly can't recall because they've been such a blur. [as you now have probably guessed, this is why I haven't updated recently] Today was one of those days. I sat down earlier to post a status update on facebook and couldn't even put a sentence together that made sense.
At several points during the last week or so it has seemed that life would just fall apart. I imagine it disintegrating into tiny pieces like the western loving little boy on Willy Wonka when he gets zapped into the TV. At the same time, there have been moments that I've wanted to hang onto and never let go of. Whether we like it or not, life is here and we are in it for better or for worse. It's a commitment. You can't just give up when you feel like it. You can't spend all of your time time celebrating your victories and accomplishments either. If we aren't careful we can quickly get pulled in to our own situations and become infatuated with ourselves. We can raise our wants and desires to a higher level and forget about what we're supposed to be doing for God. This can happen very easily in a marriage and many times this is a cause of them falling apart: it's called selfishness. We can get very selfish in our lifetime - especially with our time.
In Philippians 2:21 it says "For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." Paul wrote this when he was speaking of other 'religious' leaders who would not make the journey to Philippi with him. Timothy was the exception here. Other men wouldn't leave their homes and businesses to visit the Philippian people. They had other things they'd rather be doing. I wonder how much of our time is spent seeking to please ourselves. I know that I have been selfish with my time lately. We can blame it on work, our introvertedness, our sanity, our peace of mind, our stress levels, etc., but there's no better cure for all of these things than fellowship with one another. In order to fellowship with one another we must see one another and communicate with one another. Church is the best place to do this! Don't depend on simply making appearances on Sundays to get your fill. Get involved and make time in your week to study, worship, and fellowship with each other.
The apostle Paul spoke many times about sacrificing ourselves to further the kingdom of God. Part of sacrificing ourselves means giving our time. Over the past week or so Romans 12:1-2 has found its way into my readings. It says "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." If you're anything like me, your mind will become overwhelmed and exhausted long before your body will. When I read that section that says 'be transformed by the renewing of your mind', I think we need to clear our minds daily. I know it's hard to let go of events and situations that happen during the week - this is an even better reason for us to pray and seek God's face daily and continuously. Start your day with prayer and continue in it until your day is over. If our minds get too filled by the things of this world it will leave no room for the things of God. I believe this is especially important to those of us who work in a secular environment...it's easy to let gossip sneak its way into our ears, anger and bitterness can take hold of our thoughts, and we can forget how to maintain our composure when talking to others. If we could get into the practice of renewing our minds, I believe our Christian walk would become much stronger and so would our relationships and our witness to those around us.