My church in Madison did a series this summer called “Following Christ Without Exception”. They spent the summer talking about tough issues such as difficult marriages, death, money, friendships, etc. and how we can follow Christ in each one of these situations, when following Christ isnt easy.
It has been a very interesting teaching series, but often I felt like it wasnt really for me. I mean me have trouble with “Following Christ Without Exception”?!? How could I possibly have trouble with that? Im going on the World Race for crying out loud. Im about to leave a comfortable life in America for the slums of Manila, because I believe that Christ is the only answer to the world’s social ills. Where’s the Exception in that?
Well I found my Exception: Busyness
I returned from World Race Training Camp on Aug 10th filled up with God’s Spirit, incredibly passionate about spending time with Him, and fired up for the next year. There was only one problem. I had 3 more weeks of work. This summer I worked on a research project in the Dept of Pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was interesting and mildly enjoyable work. The problem was I had a lot to get done before my 3 weeks were up. I was busy. I worked long days and when I came home I had paperwork to get done for the World Race. On top of all that, many of my closest friends were leaving for missions trips all over the world and I wanted to make the most of my time with them before they were gone forever Pic: Me at my research lab. 8/2008 (or at least a year).
Well now guess what part of my life got the boot? God. It was not long before I heard myself saying things like, “God, Im gonna have a large chunk of time to spend with you tomorrow.” (ie. Im not going to spend time with you today, because I consider these other activities more important). Instead of spending quality time with God everyday, I was giving Him the leftovers…a few scraps of time here, a quick scan of His Word there. Now I genuinely wanted to spend time with God. Actually I longed to spend time with Him, but I was “BUSY”
After a couple weeks of this I asked God why I wasnt feeling quite as near to Him as I had right after training camp and immediately He opened my eyes to how I had been avoiding Him, how I was letting my busy life and the stress of deadlines get in my way of spending time with Him. And then He did one better. He opened my eyes to reveal that this is the same way I have always been. I realized that every school year, when the going got tough, when the papers and tests started stacking up my time with God (or more to the point: the quality of my time with God) decreased significantly. And I wonder why my relationship with Christ grows distant during those times.
So there it is. My Exception. The area of my life where Christ doesnt have control. The hard thing for me. Its busyness. Maybe its the perfectionist in me that wants(needs) to get straight A’s or make a ground breaking research find, but that is no excuse for pushing God away when things pile up.
I dont have the solution to my exception, but I do known that 50% of the answer is figuring out the problem.
Now God can work in this area of my life.
