One Day

It's a relief knowing that 28-year-old me is vastly different from 22-year-old me. Five years can make a huge difference in the life of any young person. Our perspectives change. Or at least they should. As Christians our faith should have deepened by this point. Or, unfortunately for many, that faith in God falls away altogether. I've seen friends who've had faith strengthen and I've seen friends who've had faith dissipate. I'm somewhere in the middle most of the time, which is actually a very sad place to be. My maturity levels have increased so much in the last few years and I've certainly become more open and agreeable to meeting new people than I used to be. But my faith, while there, isn't something I ever really exercise. I don't question it and I'm certainly not going to lose it. But that still, small voice meant to be the voice of God grows dimmer as the years pass. Why? Because I'm not exercising my faith. Because I don't spend time in the Word and I don't spend as much time as I should in prayer.

There you have it. My somewhat imperfect self. I'm happy with the 28-year-old me in all areas of my life except one; the development of my faith in Christ. The solution sounds so simple. Pray, read the Bible, and meditate upon Him. If only it were so simple. That's where Satan's little sneaky endeavors play a role. Something comes up and you cancel Scripture reading for only a day. My schedule is so hectic that before I realize it, it's been 4 days since I've said anything to Him other than a blessing over my meals. It feels almost like I'm a prodigal daughter except that I never deliberately ran away. I just sort of got distracted and well, wandered away.

The thing is: I know this isn't an easy fix. I'm at work at the moment so this is neither the time nor the place to sit down for some serious prayer and tears. That's always the way of it with me too. If I've wandered from Him, I pray, and I cry.  Is this what every Christian experiences? I'm not expecting an enormous epiphany. Oftentimes faith is the day-to-day experiences where I simply know that He's there and He cares. It's the trying to please Him with my life. That's when I'm actually happiest, when I'm closest to my Lord. That's when I care least about the fact that I'm single, or that I still have at least 2 years left in college, or that because of financial difficulty I still have to live at home. When I'm close to God, I love my family more and focus less on myself. When we're close, I care more about the troubles of my coworkers than I do when I'm not in communion with Him.

Those are the times when my love for Christ spills over into the other areas of my life. And it's beautiful. And it happens far too infrequently. God shouldn't be a fair-weather friend. Despite the terrifying amounts of hail and rain we've had this week, my life for the last several months has been good. It's been happy and carefree and because there haven't been any struggles, I've let time with my Savior slip by the wayside.

This isn't a "Now that you know about my lack of communion with Christ, I'm going to change from here on out" post. That would be complete and utter hypocrisy. I can only do this one day at a time. It's the same when I exercise. I don't look at the long road ahead of me. I focus only on that day. So, for this day, I'll go to church when I get home from work and do a little bit of confessing to Christ. Tomorrow is another day.