Subscription Lists

Going to an fro, hardly time to sleep much less time to smell the coffee, or drink it while it's hot. Sound familiar? You don't have to have two small children and a husband to feel like that... or hold down two jobs... or have a demanding family that you are trying to house, feed and clothe all with the shrinking dollar. There is a term used today - Time Poverty. We all suffer from it, or do we really. What exactly is sucking up all our time?

Do we sit in front of the computer for hours on end? Do we hold a phone to our ears chatting with dozens of people? Do we sit in front of the TV watching football... movies... soaps... inane sitcoms, all the while tuning out the humdrum life?

Ever notice the amount of people in the hospital and in prison who suddenly find Jesus? Perhaps it is because those are the ones who have stopped life's treadmill long enough to actually spend time with Him and to listen to Him. We Christians are supposed to be Quick to hear the Word of God, Slow to speak--be quiet, be still and hear what He speaks to our hearts. A lot of us don't want to hear what God is saying because He doesn't seem to be saying what we want to hear. We know He knows what's best, but sometimes He doesn't agree with us on how a particular problem or issue should be handled. We've got it all figured out. After all, we seem to manage our familes, children, parents, spouses... okay, why shouldn't a certain problem be handled the way we think it should?

Oh, we know that God's ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. But, God is way up there and we're down here in the trenches doing the actual fighting, right? We're the ones in the line of fire and we know the situation, right?

We are a gluttoneous people. We supersize everything and we get cranky when we don't get large portions of everything and get it quick and get it our way. We've been incredibly spoiled. We've got piles and piles of things on our plates with places to go and people to see and problems to solve. What happened to asking God what He thinks? It went by the wayside when we quit riding horses and started driving cars. It went by the wayside when we invited that stranger with the foul mouth, that brings bad news, that spews all kinds of filth from cable channels into our living rooms. It has one eye and never listens, constantly spewing noise into the family and in constant competition with radio and children and quiet conversation. We don't know how to write letters anymore. We don't know how to correctly spell words with all the C U L8TR texting.

I lament the days when we went to friends homes after church for cake and coffee... when we would sit on the porch and watch the people walking their dogs, so often chatting with them that we never noticed a mosquito bite or two. I miss sitting under the street lamps telling stories, playing Can You Top This, or ghost stories and scaring ourselves silly.

Those were the days when God was the LORD of this nation. When we had prayer in school. When morals and high ethical standards reigned instead of this relative stuff. The LORD set us free as a nation, and it was Christ who set us free from sin. Our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence knowing all the while that it could mean treason and that meant hanging by the neck until dead. All 56 men who signed that document knew God and honored Him. All 12 of the Apostles knew that following that upstart Jesus could mean death, and they never denied Him... they died honoring Him and spreading the Gospel. That is miles from where we are today.

Jesus said take up your cross and follow me. Deny yourself... lose your life and you will save it.

Deny yourself??? What? We don't even give up dessert!

"God's Words For US" from Cecelia Lester

Renew a Right Spirit