Day 6
I think the thing I'm learning today is that the key to maintaining spiritual momentum is not getting distracted. I think "Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness" is making our relationship with Christ the focal point that everything else revolves around.
I'm finding that during this forty days I'm thinking about God when I get up in the morning and thinking about God when I go to bed at night. And that hasn't always been the case. Too often my first thought is how much I need to do that day and my last thought is how much I need to do the next day!
The issues, challenges, discouragements, energy drainers, and problems in my life haven't changed. What has changed is my focus. I don't allow those things to pull me away. They push me toward Christ.
The one change I see is that I'm not dealing with the accumulation of sin in my life. Too often we wait to deal with sinful thoughts, attitudes, behaviors until they accumulate and overwhelm us. I find that during this forty days I'm "isolating" those sinful issues in my life and dealing with them. I'm so far from perfect, but I feel like I'm "managing" those sinful issues better by isolating them, repenting of them, and trying to establish new patterns of righteousness in my life.
One last thought on distractions. Blaise Pascal wrote extensively and brilliantly on "diversions." He said, "If man were happy, the less he were diverted the happier he would be, like the saints and God." I'm finding that to be true! I think the more sinful we are the more diversions we need to keep our minds off of it. The more righteousness we become the less diversion we need. God becomes our "eternal diversion"--the source of joy unspeakable and full of glory.
I think David ranks near the top of "least diverted" persons in the Bible. He meditated on the Lord and the Word day and night. He found delight in the law of the Lord (and He didn't even have the full revelation of Scripture we have). By the way, his one diversion (watching Bathsheba from the Balcony) proved to be his downfall.
God is calling us to live in "undivided devotion" to Him (I Corinthians 7:35). In other words, we never take our eyes off of Him just as He never takes His eyes off of us.
I'm finding that during this forty days I'm thinking about God when I get up in the morning and thinking about God when I go to bed at night. And that hasn't always been the case. Too often my first thought is how much I need to do that day and my last thought is how much I need to do the next day!
The issues, challenges, discouragements, energy drainers, and problems in my life haven't changed. What has changed is my focus. I don't allow those things to pull me away. They push me toward Christ.
The one change I see is that I'm not dealing with the accumulation of sin in my life. Too often we wait to deal with sinful thoughts, attitudes, behaviors until they accumulate and overwhelm us. I find that during this forty days I'm "isolating" those sinful issues in my life and dealing with them. I'm so far from perfect, but I feel like I'm "managing" those sinful issues better by isolating them, repenting of them, and trying to establish new patterns of righteousness in my life.
One last thought on distractions. Blaise Pascal wrote extensively and brilliantly on "diversions." He said, "If man were happy, the less he were diverted the happier he would be, like the saints and God." I'm finding that to be true! I think the more sinful we are the more diversions we need to keep our minds off of it. The more righteousness we become the less diversion we need. God becomes our "eternal diversion"--the source of joy unspeakable and full of glory.
I think David ranks near the top of "least diverted" persons in the Bible. He meditated on the Lord and the Word day and night. He found delight in the law of the Lord (and He didn't even have the full revelation of Scripture we have). By the way, his one diversion (watching Bathsheba from the Balcony) proved to be his downfall.
God is calling us to live in "undivided devotion" to Him (I Corinthians 7:35). In other words, we never take our eyes off of Him just as He never takes His eyes off of us.
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