There’s white stuff on the ground now. My first impulse was to burst into song,
specifically “What’s This?” from The Nightmare before Christmas, but I
restrained myself. A good thing, since I
was at work at the time. I’ve never been
too crazy about winter, but I figure if it’s got to be cold, we might as well
have snow. That kid that loves snow and
I hoped every year around Christmas that it would come never really died in me,
and I’m not ashamed to admit that.
It does have its downsides though. Among them is the difficulty it poses to
travel. As a result Wednesday night
services were canceled tonight. I understand
why that has to be done, but still I was pretty disappointed. I look forward to Wednesday nights. I need encouragement through the week. We live in a dangerous and sinful world and
it becomes difficult to maintain our focus if we only receive spiritual
encouragement one day out of the week.
As I continued thinking about this, it led me to another train of
thought: why did I experience disappointment at Wednesday night services being
canceled but I find it hard to convince myself to set time aside for God during
the week outside of assembly times?
After all, I did study my Bible tonight, but when I got home from work
that wasn’t the first thing I did. First
I watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special from last night. That bothers me.
To be clear, I’m not someone that thinks all
entertainment is evil. I’m listening to
Relient K as I’m writing this post.
Instead, I’m concerned with priorities.
I’ve always had an obsessive personality. When I discover something new or exciting I
latch onto it like a parasite. I read
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (over 900 pages) in 4-5 days. I stayed up reading the novel Unwind by Neal
Shusterman until 2 a.m. one morning because I found it that thrilling. When I first discovered Doctor Who, there
were some days I watched four episodes in a day. Why can’t I get that excited about the
Bible? Why can’t I get that excited
about prayer?
There’s a question that inevitably follows this
train of thought: why do I get excited about my obsessions? Sometimes it has to do with a gem that I find
in the message of a particular movie or song.
Unfortunately, though, that’s often more of a perk than a direct
reason. Looking at the things that have
attracted my attention in recent months (Doctor Who, Dreamworks Dragons: Riders
of Berk, and Owl City), it’s usually because I like it. I love fantasy and science-fiction and I
happen to love Owl City’s music as well.
I’ll be honest, there’s times I don’t feel like reading my Bible or praying. It makes me feel inadequate and inferior;
because I am. My problem then, as may be
the problem of some of you, is that I’m serving myself more than God. I care more about what I feel like doing than
I care about serving God. Maybe, just
maybe, priorities stem from motivation.
Why do I do what I do? Maybe if I
had my motivation straight, I would more feel like doing that which helps me do
what I am aiming to do. If you find
yourself in a similar position as I have found myself in, maybe you should do a
similar sort of soul-searching. For everything
you “feel” like doing, ask yourself a short but infinitely important question:
why?
