Kindling For The Fire

     When I started this blog, I could quite literally feel God coursing through my veins. Every breath was a hallelujah and every step was a prayer. The newness of my rekindled relationship with God had set a fire blazing in my soul. Today, I write to you from a very different place. I have returned to working in the office full time. Days that were once filled with peaceful breaks to spend with God and slow mornings spend resting in His word have resumed to a new normal of prancing around the office doing supervisor duties in between clients and being so exhausted by the time I come home, I am in bed by eight o’clock. The weekends are filled with chores, social engagements, and trying to keep up with new norms like wearing masks, social distancing, and businesses being open, then closed, then open, then closed again (phase one, phase two, where are we?!).

     This is a feeling all of us can relate to. As believers, we remember the moment we chose to follow Christ, were baptized, or first believed. We felt new and alive with the blood of Jesus, and we were, and we are. The question becomes, how do we make this sustainable? How do we continue to fuel our relationship with God and move away from the distractions that the world, sin, and Satan, try to divert our attention with? Imagine that your relationship with God is indeed a fire, and you must decide how you will continue to provide kindling to keep the fire ablaze.

     We may feel pressured to balance all that life throws at us apart from our walk with God. Our families, our jobs, our social lives, current affairs, and even our romantic relationships. But the truth is, our relationship with God must come first. Without giving intentional time to spend with the Lord and grow in His Word, our lives will be incomplete. The race will never be won. Jesus emphasizes the importance of this relationship when in John 15:5 He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Our relationship with the Father cannot come last. And I’ll be the first to confess, for the past two weeks, my relationship with Him has definitely not come first. I have put work ahead of Him. I have put wanting to watch television and read novels ahead of Him. I have put sleep ahead of Him. I have put social media ahead of Him. I have put my family and friends ahead of Him. And it has not served me well. The fire has been dwindling, and I am in desperate need for kindling to reignite the life of Christ that runs through my veins.

     This weekend was the first weekend in a month that I have not had obligations outside of the home to fulfill. Yes, work has still been busier than ever, however, I have had the past three days to pause and re-center. I have also been in quiet prayer, seeking counsel from the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father, asking for direction on how to keep myself deep in relationship, devotion, and faith. Today, I am sharing a few tips that I have begun to implement that I hope will also give you some kindling for your own fire. Every person is different, and every relationship with God is unique, so this is not a one size fits all, but rather just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing. To abide in Christ consistently is going to require different things during different seasons, but these are my new go-tos for this season in which I find myself.

Be intentional with your time: It’s easy to put God last. It’s easy to feel like we can justify why work is more important, why taking care of our family should come first, and we can even find ways to justify why “taking a few weeks off” from intentional relationship with God is understandable. The truth is, when we say other things are more important that our relationship with God, we are in essence saying that He is not important. One day passes, the next day, and before we know it, we have fallen out of our close relationship with the Creator. So be intentional. This past week I’ve made a conscious decision to intentionally set time out to spend with God. Some nights, Brandon and I will to watch a few episodes of a tv show together. This week, I verbally communicated that I needed to skip TV night and spend my time with the Lord instead. When it gets hard to carve time out, remind yourself of what your life looks like when it’s missing God as the heartbeat. Remind yourself that without God, your life will be incomplete.  

Make it manageable: You do not need to engage with God the same way every day. When I started renewing my relationship with our Father this spring, I had it in my mind that I needed to read the same amount of scripture every.single.day. That burned me out quickly. Over the last week, it’s looked like reading one chapter a day. It can be as small as one verse a day. Or it can be prayer. Or watching a sermon. Or making a gratitude list. You relationship with God does not have to be spending an hour a day (although I wish I could) knee-deep in studying and devotion. Holding ourselves to a preconceived notion of what our time spent with God needs to look like often leads to feelings of shame and overwhelm, which is exactly the opposite of how God wants us to feel when in relationship with Him.

Don’t shame yourself: Every relationship with God is unique. Do not put pressure on yourself to worship like everyone else. Your relationship is going to look different than mine, and both of our relationships will look different then someone like Beth Moore’s. The key is the relationship. When I fell off my Bible study track and was reading only a chapter per day, while skipping a few days here and there, I initially felt really guilty. But God doesn’t care if I miss a day, God cares that I am in His word and seeking Him. So, on days I run out of time to read, I pray. I meditate on what I read last. I talk about it. I listen to worship music. I listen to a Christian podcast. And some days I simply pray for more time. Some people shy away from Christianity because of the overwhelming feeing of shame placed upon them by Christian-shame-culture. I implore you not to fall prey to that. Your relationship with God will be ever evolving, and as long as you are seeking and trying, you are on the right track.

Don’t give up: I often tell my clients, it’s not about how many times you fall off the horse, it’s about how many times you get back on. We are human. We are flawed. We are imperfect. We are bound to fail. We are bound to fall short. But don’t give up. You will get off track. You will feel like you are not being a “good enough” Christian. You will get busy, and tired, and frustrated, and lose hope. That’s okay. Seek God anyway. God has never given up on us. In fact, lately I’ve been referring to the Bible as “the world’s greatest rescue mission,” because God never stops pursuing us. The Bible is evidence of that. No matter how far we stray, how long we remain silent, how deeply we suffer, how distant from Him we become, He always comes for us. He always rescues us. He never gave up. The entire Bible is story after story of us failing, cursing God, going against His will, and doubting Him. Yet He finds ways time after time to rescue us. To pursue us and bring us back into His fold. What a God! So don’t give up. Keep trying, keep adjusting, and keep searching for kindling to fuel your fire. God is with you always, as am I, and we are both rooting for you.