Distracted. Day 1/21.

My church is doing a 21 day fast that I’m partaking in, but instead of giving up food for 21 days, I’ve given up my night owl ways; every night at 9:30PM I’m going to turn away from the world and connect with God. Today was my first day doing this and I’ve also decided that I’m going to blog about my time with The Lord.

Day 1
I haven’t felt truly connected to God in a while. I haven’t heard His voice or felt or seen Him move in my life in quite some time and it has been frustrating. I’ll silently sit, close my eyes and try to turn off my thoughts.
“Okay God, I’m ready,” I say.
And I wait and my mind trudges up memories, thoughts, moments from TV shows, what I’ll eat the next day and etc. You name it. If it’s an inane worldly thought and I’m trying to connect to God, it will cross my mind. It’s a bit funny to write about now, but in those moments I often want to and have actually cried. When we Christians say Christianity is about a relationship, not a religion, we mean it. I don’t see God as this dictator in the sky. I see Him as my friend, Father and lover and when I can’t connect to Him I feel incomplete.

In spite of my best intentions and desires for intimacy with The Lord, I realized today why I’ve felt distant from Him. It’s because I’ve been distracted and I’ve forgotten that God is God. My inability to turn off my thoughts when I come into His presence is because sometimes I care about this world more than I care about Him. I wake up, quickly pray and then go about my day as if He doesn’t even exist. It’s like I forget that I’m even His child until 20 minutes before bed when I pray and read my bible. It’s no wonder I feel disconnected from Him. He doesn’t want half of our hearts and an 8th of our days; He wants our full hearts and most of our attention so that we live in the world, but not of it. And ladies and gentlemen, I have been very much of the world of late.

I make the next point about my disconnection resulting from the fact that He’s God because in the same way that He doesn’t have to prove His existence to anyone, He doesn’t have to prove His relationship to me. He’s mighty God and anything that He gives that we ask of Him is a gift, and just like your parents won’t always give you the gift you’ve asked for, He won’t always answer your prayer as you’ve asked Him to. His ways and reasons are beyond our earthly imaginations; hence why we shouldn’t question Him or His ways or tell Him to prove Himself or His relationship to us.

Yet, He sometimes does: “He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” So while He might not give to us what exactly we ask for all the time, He does give us what we need in His perfect time. It’s no coincidence that I became aware of my distracted nature and His sovereignty on the first day of this fast.

I don’t mean to preach– I know God hasn’t called me to a pulpit, but as s writer, believer and individual that loves to search for the greater metaphor and lesson in things, I’m heart pressed to share this and whatever else I learn over these next 21 days.

I’m Addicted to Popcorn & God…

The first time I tried it, it was incredible. I bought it at the store not knowing what to expect. When I got home I promptly sat on my couch and began to indulge. I allowed myself to be overwhelmed with its goodness. It made my taste buds tingle. Its smell unpleasant, but its taste ravishing. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. No matter how much of it I had, I wanted more. More and more of its salty goodness & buttery flavor as I popped handful after handful into my mouth. Pause. Yes, I’m talking about popcorn. Why? Because to put it plain, and well, awkwardly… I have a bit of an addiction to popcorn. No, really, I do. And while this addiction may not be one that will kill or even harm me, it has gotten me to think more about addictions.

Reflecting on addictions has enabled me to see just how feeble the human flesh really is. With just a few samples of one thing, our minds become enslaved by said thing. The enslaving process beginning when we make certain things the answer to our problems. Be it gambling, alcohol, drugs, porn, sex, etc. we allow these things to become our escapes. When we escape to them too often, they become safe havens. Finding safety in such destructive places leaves us trapped. So that escape, that freedom we longed for, ends up being a prison. Unable to break down the walls we’ve built, we constantly succumb to whatever holds us captive. It gets to the point where we label and identify ourselves with these problems; “I’m an alcoholic;” “I’m a gambling addict;” and the list goes on. These labels give us an excuse for the problem. The mindset being, it is something we can’t help.

These labels are wrong because there are two labels that can categorize the entire human race: Sinner & Saved. We all have this addiction to escape. Whether we like to escape to social media, to partying, to family time, to vacation, to sleep, & etc. That innate desire to step away from the stresses around us is normal & apart of who we are. The differences arise in what we end up escaping to. Because of our sin nature, we often escape to the aforementioned vices that can destroy; things that we expect to fill us, but that eventually leave us with a gnawing emptiness. But then there’s the second label: Saved. While we all have a sin nature embedded in us, we’ve all been saved from it, meaning we all have the ability to rise above the things holding us captive. Not in our own flesh, but in The flesh that was shed on the cross for our sins. Jesus’ death made a way for us to receive God’s grace. My addiction above popcorn and all else is God. This addiction is unlike any others because it’s not a temporary escape. It’s a pathway to eternal happiness that helps me overcome my struggles & the destructive vices of this world. I walk away knowing that what I’m indulging in, is the love of a Father, Friend, Lover, Healer & Savior all in one that brings me a peace that passes all understanding.