Complacency

Writing is therapeutic and therapy sounds great right about now. So does a chocolate bar, and a hot tub, and a day to sleep in ridiculously late, but that's a little off-topic. ...Well, it would be assuming I had a topic at the moment. Which I'm not entirely sure about.

Lately I feel like I've been a huge failure as a Christian. It's nothing that I'm doing--my life looks pretty dang sparkly and clean on the outside--but more what I am failing to do. I consistently put myself and my desires ahead of God and spending time with Him. I forget to talk with Him, to listen to Him, to live for Him, to seek what He wants me to do. I wake up every morning focusing on my agenda for the day: what I have to accomplish, what I should accomplish, and (to be completely honest) what I want to avoid accomplishing. Everything is going so well in my life that I've sunk into a cozy little pit of annoying complacency. It's just sickening enough to make me uncomfortable, as if I overate at a Thanksgiving dinner; but it doesn't bother me enough to keep me from jumping up and cutting myself a slice of pumpkin pie when it comes time for dessert. (Actually, I'm still thinking about that chocolate bar.) In other words, it must not bother me enough yet. Or maybe I'm just not sure how to change.

Habits are hard to form and even harder to break. And I guess I'm starting to realize that I don't know how to talk to God as well as I once thought I did. Maybe I learned all the wrong ways to pray and formed some bad habits. I don't want to continuously go to Him every day with the same list of problems, concerns, and desires--my relationship with Him shouldn't be all about what I can get out of it. Yes, we're supposed to take our problems to him, but when it's emphasized too much it's easy to then sink into a ritual of reciting the same supplications day in and day out. I know God sure doesn't care much about hearing the same things every night and I sure don't feel like being a broken record. "Pray until something happens" sounds great until you are trapped in such monotony that you forget why you even started praying for a particular situation, or you repeat the words only because you feel like you're supposed to. It's lost all meaning. It's almost like we think that God isn't powerful enough to answer our one-time prayers; that He needs our help. Maybe if we religiously say the same things over and over, He will finally answer our prayers on our terms in our time. Maybe.

With that sort of attitude, no wonder I have such a bad prayer life now. Of course I do. I got bored.

Here's my other problem. Focus is so often put on what we are supposed to say but little emphasis is placed on how we are supposed to listen. I don't know about you, but I'm seriously craving some personal words from God. I don't want prayer time to be all about what I have to say to God. In fact, being a writer and a "words person," I need to hear from Him desperately. I need to be reminded of His love. I need encouragement and advice and reassurance. I'd be a lot more comfortable sitting at His feet and listening to Him about what He thinks about my life and where He wants me to go, who He wants me to be, and what He wants me to do than I would talking about it. Because I don't have a clue.

I want to try to break my old bad habits and form new ones. I want my relationship with God to be more like a relationship. I want my prayers to be more like conversations. Since I'm a "words" person and a writer, I think I want to try writing out my prayers and then the words I feel God is answering me with. It's a lot easier than trying to speak (aloud or otherwise). There's a deeper connection there and I think that's what I need to pursue.

But I want some help and accountability, dear friends. Please pray for me (and no, that doesn't mean you have to repeat the same words to God over and over for a certain number of nights!) and take this journey with me if you feel that you need to do so. Find a new way to communicate with God that you haven't tried before, one that opens the doors to talk to Him more freely and naturally and helps you listen to Him. And please, if you remember, take a chance to talk to me about it. Ask how I'm doing. I'll check in with you. Forgive all my rambling tonight...but thank you for reading. Let's try to pursue our relationships with God on a deeper level and avoid these pits of complacency. Because I'm sick of it...and I think I'm finally sick enough to find a way to change.