A couple of weeks ago, I was at the bank. Our bank highlights a different local business each month. This month a lawn care company was highlighted. The company had a sign that said register to win a free bush. As one who is always game for getting something for nothing, I wrote down my name and number and dropped it in the fishbowl. A week later, I received a phone call..."You won!" I was waiting for the catch, but there was none. I submitted my information, the company pulled out my name and not only did I win a new plant, they were even going to plant it for me. It is a beautiful plant with a name I cannot pronounce. Add to it that I did not even have to plant it and I was feeling like I just won the lottery. It is fun to win a free gift!
The lawn company owner who delivered and planted the bush asked of me only one thing: "Make sure she gets plenty of water," he urged. He said that our yard is full of clay and that in the summer heat, it is very important that this young bush get plenty of water if I want her to continue to have nice full and green leaves and beautiful flowers. "Yeah, yeah," I said, "plenty of water...no problem."
Day one... was no problem, especially since the lawn care company owner watered it for me. Day two...I was careful to keep it watered. Day three...I thought it's been watered two days in a row, I am tired, I think I will skip watering it until tomorrow after work. I got home from work the next day and that poor bush was shriveled and puny. It looked like somebody stole my beautiful bush and replaced it with a very pitiful specimen. About that time, I could hear the Lawn Company Owner's voice haunting me..."Be sure she gets plenty of water...Be sure she gets plenty of water..." It had only been one day of no water, but one day was enough to rob that prize of its original beauty.
In Christ we win a great and free gift! When we accept Christ as the Forgiver of our sins and leader of our lives, we win new life now and forever. Christ and his gift of new life is personal, real, exciting, beautiful! Jesus says, "This is yours. I paid the price for it. There is nothing you can do to earn or deserve it. All you have to do now is water the gift of faith." So, we get excited and we say, "No problem". We start watering our new found relationship with God...we worship, we meditate on the truth of the Bible, we pray, we serve...and we can tell we are growing...it's nothing less than beautiful...and then over time, usually very gradually, we start to devalue the importance of watering our faith. We get busy. We get distracted. We get tired. Maybe we even get a bit prideful and we think, "I can put off watering until tomorrow." And once we do it is amazing how quickly the life of God begins to fade in us...it is amazing how quickly the beauty of Christ in us begins to shrivel up.
Maybe someone reading this today feels shriveled up spiritually. I know what that is like. I have been there. Listen...can you hear his voice...Jesus says, "Make sure she gets plenty of water." What we have in Christ is not a religion. Religion is built upon rites and rituals that you go to once a week or once a month or a couple of times a year to do your spiritual duty and then go on with the rest of your life. But what we have in Christ is about a relationship with the living and personal God. For a relationship to be healthy it takes constant and daily nurturing. The more nurturing it receives, the more it blossoms.
For a long time I resisted what the Bible taught about the place of and importance of watering my faith by moving past an hour on Sunday to truly connect with other Christ Followers to study God's Word, pray, encourage and be encouraged and be held accountable. I use to think that I did not really need others to grow in my faith and besides that my personality type leaves me feeling initially uncomfortable in such situations. However, thankfully, God would not let me get away with such excuses. I now run to watering my faith in and with Christian community because I have seen how much God uses it (imagine that...God uses what he says he will use). Not only do the Small groups I participate in water my faith and help it grow, but the small groups provide me the accountability I need to keep me from falling into the thinking that my faith can go without watering for a day or two.
My prayer for everyone who calls Living Hoe there church home is that we would move past an hour on Sunday and water our faith through discovering and becoming the Christian community to which the Bible calls us. There is no need to live shriveled up spiritual lives. God gave you his gift so you could increasingly become a reflection of his beauty.
That beauty is not uncovered in isolation, but with others.
Acts 2:42-47 describes what Christian community looks like and how it waters our faith. Check it out!
2 comments:
Thanks for the story. I have seen this cycle in my chirstian walk from beginning to end-several times. There is the healthy bush, it gets cared for daily, I pat myself on the back it looks so great, next I miss a watering day, inevitably the bush becomes dehydrated, shriveled and is "circling the drain". I rush in with pleanty of water and miracle grow and begin to care for the plant again. Thankfully, God is the root and we the the brances, otherwise we might not notice the changes until a funeral is in order. I have kept prayer diaries for years-I re-read them when I need to remember that God indeed is working miracles in my life. I have found many sincere, heart convicted enteries of tearful, guilty confessions that it is I who have somehow walked away from the giver of life. These aren't intentional for the most part. It just seems that "things" will come up that mesmerize and pull me away. Later I "wake up" from my drug induced coma wondering how did this happen AGAIN! My heart wants the cycle to stop. I imagine how much more beauty my stunted plant would posess if I know how to end the cycle. Thanks again for a wonderful story Chad. I would like to hear thoughts and ideas about this issue. In Chist-I Am
Dear In Christ I Am,
Thank you for taking the time not only to reply, but for your openness and willingness to look inside. I really appreciate that. I know I (and I would imagine many other Followers of Christ) can relate to the feeling of being "mesmerized and pulled away" from the closeness we have once had with Christ. I offer two thoughts to follow up with yours:
1) As I notice such cycles, the first question I am learning to ask is,"Why?" This is different for me, as I use to primarily ask what is wrong or what am I doing wrong. "What" does a good job of pointing me to the symptom, but I am finding that "why" points me to the root and source. Why is there this cycle of closeness and then being pulled away? Is there a predictable pattern? Can I see it coming, do I recognize it when it is happening or do I only see it after the fact? And to that question, I would ask why? What do I feel...what is brought to the surface in me when I begin to be pulled away? why does it feel that way? Where does it come from and why?
2) It is obvious that you are not afraid to be completely honest and vulnerable before God. What if the next step is to take such honest confession before other Followers of Christ? James 5:16 says "Confess your sins one to another and then you will be healed." The community aspect of our faith is often overlooked and even ignored in our culture of individualism and demand for privacy. But the New Testament church portrayed a faith that was radically community centered. Church was not something thy went to, but something they lived together. In and through each other God worked to keep them from being pulled away and in the center of the freshness of his Spirit.
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