“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)
Last week, I arrived at my office for another stress-filled day. As the morning wore on, I began to experience shortness of breath and tightness in the chest. I couldn’t believe it. It just couldn’t be a heart attack.
I began to think things through and finally concluded that all the signs pointed to trouble. Besides the fact that I was short of breath and had pain in my chest, I had the family history to go with it. My mother died of a heart attack at 44, and my father suffered for years with heart trouble. Add to the mix that I am a diabetic, overweight and it doesn’t take a physician to deduce that I needed to pay attention to the symptoms. I decided to call my doctor. Guess what? He advised me to get to the emergency room as quickly as possible.
When I arrived, I went through all the normal machinations that a potential heart attack victim would expect—EKG, blood work, all of which concluded that I had not experienced a heart attack. The next day, just to be on the safe side, I had another tread mill, my third in three years, which also proved to be normal.
I returned to work a couple of days later, ready to roll up my sleeves and catch up on all the fun I had missed. Shortly after my office opened, one of my co-workers dropped in to check on me. I expected the normal. You know. “Good to see you back behind your desk?” “Glad to hear it wasn’t anything serious.” Etc, etc, etc.
I pretty much heard the same thing from her initially, but then she really startled me. “You’ve lost your focus,” she told me. “Maybe God is trying to get your attention.”
“What do you mean, I’ve lost my focus?” I asked. I couldn’t believe what she said. She is a sister in Christ and a very mature Christian. We’ve talked from time to time, and I’ve confessed to her how much trouble I have finding time to pray and read my bible. It seems the only time I usually have to devote to bible study is preparing this column or my weekly Sunday School lesson.
“You never take any time for yourself,” she told me. You’re a workaholic. You need to take some time for Mike, and work on your own relationship with the Lord. Maybe that’s why God put you on your back like He did – to give you a little time to think about things.”
Wow! She was right. I’ve become so immersed in my own world, my own rut, that I completely forgot about the routine maintenance Christians need to maintain a close walk with the Lord. After thinking it over for a few days, I’ve realized that the change I need to make isn’t all that easy. A rut can get pretty comfortable. In fact, climbing out of it is not as easy as I thought it would be.
As I thought out my plan, I made my up mind that I’m not going to give up my ministry of writing a weekly column or teaching a weekly Sunday School lesson. That’s not what God wants me to do. But my co-worker is right. I have to make time each day for prayer and bible study, just for me. So I have committed to try to take fifteen minutes each day to pray and spend some time in the Word of God. It seems like so little, but with the busy schedule I have, and the habits I’ve developed over the past few years, it seems insurmountable.
Perhaps you see yourself in this story. Have you let the world steal away the time you should be spending strengthening your personal relationship with Christ? Carve out a little time each day for Jesus. Remember my friend’s advice: You’re not going to get very much out of a relationship unless you invest some time in it.
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