Going Through the Motions

I generally feel like my life is going pretty good. I've got things pretty much together, I have a great family, I have great friends, I go to church regularly, I pretty much do all the right things. As I began my day yesterday, I realized that things weren't really what I had perceived them to be. They rarely are when you've got so many "I's" working for you. (or against you)

I got ready for church yesterday morning and I had a few extra minutes before leaving (a great feat in and of it self for me! because I'm not a morning person) so I opened my bible up to James and started to ready. I only had time to read for about 5 minutes before everyone was ready to go, but that 5 minutes was enough to bother me. There were a couple of phrases that seemed to just jump out and knock me back. "he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind." And then, "unstable in all he does". I left for church thinking, why did those phrases pop out at me? I've got things together.

We got to class and had another great lesson, by Jim Kirk. He has an incredible way of teaching and making you feel like your watching a movie. He brings the stories we are discussing to life in remarkable ways. By the end of his class, I felt even more like I was being convicted in my heart. A couple of things he said to close class were, "Only when we realize we need cleansing, can we be cleansed." "Only when we reach the end of "our" way, we will turn to God and accept His way." It really hit me and I started thinking, "am I really trying to do everything my way?"

Then, on to worship. I looked at the song selection in the bulletin and thought, wow... that's a great list of songs. We got into our worship time and after the call to worship, the next song was "Breathe". I was thinking, oh I really like that song and we haven't sung it in a while. But then our worship minister, Chad Higgins, had us stop and breathe in deeply. He asked us to thing about what we picture God's glory to be and breathe that in deeply and then exhale, to continue to breathe the Glory of God in deeply and exhale and after several times of doing this, we began singing the song "Breathe". The song convicted me like never before. The lyrics are...

This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me

This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me

And I, I'm desperate for you
And I, I'm lost without you

The part about God being the air that I breathe, started to hit me. Do I really allow Him to be the air that I breathe? And when we reached the words, "I'm desperate for you, I'm lost without you" I realized just how desperate I was. I realized in that moment that I let myself get caught up in the motions of being a child of God. I had let my spiritual life become routine. I had not been breathing in the air that is God and I truly was desperate for Him. I realized that the words in James I had read earlier that morning where the beginning of my conviction that morning. Because I realized I did feel like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind and I felt unstable in all I did. When we start having so many I's in our language, we lose sight of the fact that "I" am nothing without "Him".

I want God to always be the air that I breathe. There is no other air that is more refreshing!

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7

God is the air that I breathe! Blessings!