Pay Attention.

Lately, I've lost my interest in God's Word.  Reading my Bible every day has become a chore.

Let's face it -- we all go through this from time to time.  Some call it a "dry desert" period in their spiritual lives.  I liken it to when I get tired of the music on a particular CD, or a style of clothing or decorating.  I've seen enough, and I'm just weary of it.

That I could possibly get weary of the very words that God said is mind-boggling to me.  It fills me with guilt and shame.  I cannot believe that I would avoid the God of the universe, who created me.  That I would be so cavalier --  who do I think I am, anyway?

Now this isn't to say that I've stopped praying.  But I have to admit -- when my daily input of God speaking stops, my prayer life starts being filled up with nothing but that eternal "Santa list" of wants.  I'm asking for good things, like for people to be healed or consoled or for some nice thing to happen.  I'm all altruistic and everything -- but I don't look up.

My perspective is horizontal, not vertical.

And what ends up happening then is that I go back to reading, and it's all rote.  I read it just to get it read.  It becomes a chore.  And of course I want to do it even less.  It's a vicious cycle.

This is inevitable in all our lives.  Maybe it doesn't happen that often to you.  But when we're honest, we all have to admit that it happens to us sometimes.

My solution?  As the daily emails started to pile up (I read through the bible online), they nagged at me.  There they were, waiting to be read.  And I am just obsessive-compulsive enough to not delete them, knowing that the guilt would get me.  What to do, what to do?

I decided to go a bit deeper into what I was reading.  I googled "commentary" and found Coffman.  It's all written referencing the scripture in the King James, and I read it in The Message.  But the gist of it is still the same.  I'm getting the idea behind the words, and that has really helped me get interested again in the Word.  I don't read it all, just the interesting parts, or the parts where I'm wondering what Jesus meant or what exactly was happening.

It makes me aware that I need to lift my head, and that I can't even do that on my own.  So my prayers change, and become the asking of God to just lift my chin and my eyes and to fill my entire vision with Him.

And the renewing happens, because God is faithful when I am not.  God knows that I will lose interest.  He knows that life is daily and routine, and that He made it that way.  Our companions and spouses sometimes tend to fade into the background of our lives.  But they are no less important to us in the long run.  Something will always happen to bring them back into focus.  Something always happens to bring Him back into my direct line of sight.

So I'm getting over the guilt, plodding ahead, and even getting a bit smarter when it comes to understanding what was going on in the life of Jesus.  Honestly, He was probably the most interesting man that ever lived.

Probably because He was God, right?

xoxoxox