I have a confession to make....I am a sucker for European soap operas. I know, I know...how Unchristian of me! (That's sarcasm...unless of course you're a bit legalistic...in which case, sorry). I could honestly watch them all day long. In fact...to be honest... I have. There's just something about the accent and the drama that just sucks me in and before I know it half my day (or all of it) is gone! So I made a decision a few days ago that for the next 21 days I would give them up as kind of a "sacrifice" to God. I know, kind of a strange thing to sacrifice to the Holy One, but totally necessary none-the-less.
You see I had been starting to realize that I was spending so much of my free time sucked into these made up stories, that I wasn't really living my story any more. I mean I was...during working hours....but then when it was time to go "off the clock" I would relax with my make believe TV friends and miss out on the community and life and growing up going on around me.
On top of that, I found myself complaining a lot to God that I felt distant from Him. I would tell Him, "God, I am seeking you with all that I am and all that I have but I feel like there's a blockage between us and I don't know what it is. Why are you hiding your face from me?!". Yet in reality I was spending more time seeking after the next great storyline, or catching up on sleep because I stayed up way too late to watch the last storyline, than actually seeking God with my everything. I even doubt now that He was hiding His face from me. I think I just wasn't really looking for it.
So Sunday morning I quit cold turkey and I decided that instead of spending my days staring at a computer screen I would instead spend my time with my bible, or a book, or a friend. Instead of living vicariously through people on a TV show filmed a continent away, I decided that I would instead yield myself for real to God and allow Him to live in and through me.
Can I admit something though?! It hasn't been all that easy. Don't get me wrong, the benefit has been that in the past few days I have found my missing excitement to read and study the bible...and I have bonded more with my friends and housemates. But I've also found myself longing for the brain-deadness of you-tube. What is it about things that don't really add any value to our lives that are so addicting?!? And why is it so much easier to get lost in the things of the world than in the things of God?!
I know God's got better for me and as I take time to separate myself from these things, He will speak to me. I even know this is the right decision for me at this time....and who knows maybe I will never go back...but for now I long for the momentary relief of some one else's drama.
Clearly I realize that my desires are a little out of whack though and thus, that's why I am sacrificing this ridiculousness to God. And I pray that during this time of sacrifice God will fill me with a hunger for Him that's not satisfied with the distractions of the world, but rather with a desire to be captivated only by him. Amen
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