No one can
serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and
Money (Matthew 6:24)
I learned to like football when I was in college, thanks to roommates and friends. After college, football seemed to get in the way of more and more of what I was doing. I would coach with such exuberance that my Chow would come into the room huffing and looking around to see whom she was supposed to “Get.” A few minutes later, I’d sneak out during an ad to work on something on my computer, and discover that somehow, we had gone from the middle of the second quarter to the beginning of the fourth. For comparison, there were several of my friends who religiously wore team shirts, owned Terrible Towels, and knew the rules of the game well enough to know what each player was supposed to do, what teams were in which league and how the teams stood in the stats. I have friends who are even part of Fantasy Football leagues. Somehow, I never compared to my friends in terms of devotion. On the other hand, the thing that I snuck out on ads to work on? I spent more than 20 years researching my family’s history. For part of that time, I woke up around midnight almost every night without the aid of an alarm and checked the obituaries in the Wilkes-Barre newspaper before going back to sleep.
I wish I could say that I’m that devoted to Christ. Oh, there have been times when I’ve stuck with Christ and His Church to the detriment of my career, or of relationships, but somehow, it just doesn’t seem to measure up to the devotion of a football fan. Admittedly, there may be personality style differences I’m not considering, but I don’t feel comfortable with singing “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” or “As the deer panteth for the water….” I’d like to sing them whole-heartedly, but I just don’t know. Do I measure up?
E. M. Bounds said that devotion is necessary to prayer. This makes some sense to me. I’m not going to pray to God now and to some petty godling tomorrow. But when it comes to the question of whether I’m going to spend the next thirty minutes praying or the next thirty minutes (or hour) scrolling through Facebook posts, that’s another question. Christianity doesn’t have rigid requirements about when we pray. There’s no reason I can’t fit both into my day, but devotion seems to me to have to do with comparative wants. When one is devoted, one wants connection with the thing to which one is devoted and when there are competing wants, the one chosen is the one to which one is devoted, especially if there is a pattern of choices.
There are other ways to look at devotion. I have friends who threaten the lives of anyone who interrupts their favorite TV shows. How do we feel about interruptions to our time spent with God? I’m not suggesting we should threaten lives if someone interrupts our prayer or Bible study time, but do we at least try to go back? Perhaps more importantly, do we try to avoid interrupting ourselves during that time? Do we try to eliminate distractions? Does it matter to us? When we are praying or studying, do we put our whole selves into it?
For some people, devotion means that prayer and Bible study must be done before anything else. They must get up at least a half hour before anyone else in the house or “forget it.” I understand that, and it is devotion, but it doesn’t work well for me. I do better when I get at least some basic stuff out of the way so that I am not distracted by them. I may still get up before anyone else in the house, but if I can make the bed, put laundry in the washer, or make a crock of soup, or whatever, then I feel freed to spend time devoted to my relationship with God.
One final way of looking at devotion. Devotion doesn’t change when things don’t go your way. It’s not fair-weather friendship. Devotion is about the long-haul over the rocky terrain in the heat of the sun or the sub-freezing blizzard. It’s about staying with when staying with isn’t fun, convenient, or (in some cases) deemed wise. Devotion is when you pray,
Lord, remove anything that comes between You and me.
And mean it.
I learned to like football when I was in college, thanks to roommates and friends. After college, football seemed to get in the way of more and more of what I was doing. I would coach with such exuberance that my Chow would come into the room huffing and looking around to see whom she was supposed to “Get.” A few minutes later, I’d sneak out during an ad to work on something on my computer, and discover that somehow, we had gone from the middle of the second quarter to the beginning of the fourth. For comparison, there were several of my friends who religiously wore team shirts, owned Terrible Towels, and knew the rules of the game well enough to know what each player was supposed to do, what teams were in which league and how the teams stood in the stats. I have friends who are even part of Fantasy Football leagues. Somehow, I never compared to my friends in terms of devotion. On the other hand, the thing that I snuck out on ads to work on? I spent more than 20 years researching my family’s history. For part of that time, I woke up around midnight almost every night without the aid of an alarm and checked the obituaries in the Wilkes-Barre newspaper before going back to sleep.
I wish I could say that I’m that devoted to Christ. Oh, there have been times when I’ve stuck with Christ and His Church to the detriment of my career, or of relationships, but somehow, it just doesn’t seem to measure up to the devotion of a football fan. Admittedly, there may be personality style differences I’m not considering, but I don’t feel comfortable with singing “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” or “As the deer panteth for the water….” I’d like to sing them whole-heartedly, but I just don’t know. Do I measure up?
E. M. Bounds said that devotion is necessary to prayer. This makes some sense to me. I’m not going to pray to God now and to some petty godling tomorrow. But when it comes to the question of whether I’m going to spend the next thirty minutes praying or the next thirty minutes (or hour) scrolling through Facebook posts, that’s another question. Christianity doesn’t have rigid requirements about when we pray. There’s no reason I can’t fit both into my day, but devotion seems to me to have to do with comparative wants. When one is devoted, one wants connection with the thing to which one is devoted and when there are competing wants, the one chosen is the one to which one is devoted, especially if there is a pattern of choices.
There are other ways to look at devotion. I have friends who threaten the lives of anyone who interrupts their favorite TV shows. How do we feel about interruptions to our time spent with God? I’m not suggesting we should threaten lives if someone interrupts our prayer or Bible study time, but do we at least try to go back? Perhaps more importantly, do we try to avoid interrupting ourselves during that time? Do we try to eliminate distractions? Does it matter to us? When we are praying or studying, do we put our whole selves into it?
For some people, devotion means that prayer and Bible study must be done before anything else. They must get up at least a half hour before anyone else in the house or “forget it.” I understand that, and it is devotion, but it doesn’t work well for me. I do better when I get at least some basic stuff out of the way so that I am not distracted by them. I may still get up before anyone else in the house, but if I can make the bed, put laundry in the washer, or make a crock of soup, or whatever, then I feel freed to spend time devoted to my relationship with God.
One final way of looking at devotion. Devotion doesn’t change when things don’t go your way. It’s not fair-weather friendship. Devotion is about the long-haul over the rocky terrain in the heat of the sun or the sub-freezing blizzard. It’s about staying with when staying with isn’t fun, convenient, or (in some cases) deemed wise. Devotion is when you pray,
Lord, remove anything that comes between You and me.
And mean it.
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