Check the Box

By Pastor Eric

Routines in our lives can be a good thing! Routines keep us organized, help make us productive, create purpose and direction, and routines can produce a sense of calm in an already very busy and stressful life. Whether at home, work, or even during our leisures times, many of us have a routine of some sort. 

Routines can also be a negative thing. Routines can keep us from experiencing new things, can keep us in a “bubble” of comfort, and can keep us from growing physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. As someone who spends a lot of time in the gym weightlifting, it is important to keep your muscles “guessing” what is coming next or they tend to get comfortable in a particular routine and muscle growth declines. You will see the greatest and fastest growth when you are “shocking” your muscles with new and not so routine workouts. 

Is your personal relationship with God a good routine? Or a not-so-good one? It’s great to develop habits that cause us to spend time with God and delve into his Word on a regular basis. But not when that routine becomes a daily chore, just one box on a checklist that needs to be filled so we can get on with our lives.

God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us, not just be a part of our daily “routine.” Our prayer time and moments in scripture become something we “have to get done” instead of putting God at the center of our entire day. We get “spiritually filled” for that particular part of our day and then do whatever we want for the rest of it. Is that giving Jesus all of our hearts? 

In Genesis 5:22 we read that, “Enoch walked [in habitual fellowship] with God three hundred years after the birth of Methuselah and had other sons and daughters.” For 300 years Enoch lived in a daily relationship with God, and with a deep desire and heart to be close to God every day! This relationship was anything but routine but instead a commitment, a covenant, and full surrendered way of living with and for the Lord of his life. 

It can be very easy to measure our spiritual health by how many times we accomplish the routine spiritual tasks we have set in place for our week. How many times we read scripture, go to Bible study, pray for others, or serve in some sort of way. God wants more than a checklist of routine tasks, he wants our complete love and devotion…he wants all of us. Draw close to God every day, seeking a true and genuine relationship with the Father……NOT another routine. 

Has your spiritual life become a list of routine things you feel need to be done during the day and or week? What parts of your relationship with God could use something “out of the box” work, something that will help you grow closer to the one that loves you so much?  

King David to his son Solomon: “And you, Solomon my son, get to know well your father’s God; serve him with a whole heart and eager mind, for God examines every heart and sees through every motive. If you seek him, he’ll make sure you find him, but if you abandon him, he’ll leave you for good.” 1 Chronicles 28:9