I’m sleep deprived. Over the weekend I went to a convention. It meant sleeping (more like tossing and turning) in a strange bed, staying up way too late, getting up way too early and eating way too much. In essence, my normal routine was out of whack.
Each day was crammed with activities, lectures and learning. Towards the end I ran out of steam. Like a plow horse to the barn, I made a beeline for home, and my own bed. But, when I got home, I couldn’t sleep. All the sights and sounds of the convention swirled in my brain. Then I realized, the whole time I was there, God had not been in the schedule. I never prayed nor did I read my Bible. I was following a tightly orgnaized man-made schedule and not fitting God into it.
What dawned on me is this is what happens in my spiritual life as well when I break the routine of prayer and Bible study – it spills over into my physical life. If I let the pressures of the to do list swirl in my brain, if I dash like a pollenating bee from project to project, and feel so stressed for time that I leave out God, I get out of my routine. I feel sluggish, brain dead, and out of sorts, as if the world is spinning but I have not yet caught up with the rhythym. I may be busy as a bee, but not accomplishing half as much. I’ve followed my own demanded by the world schedule and not fit God into it. That is like baking a cake without eggs – a main ingredient is missing. My day is just not going to turn out alright.
Just as our bodies need routine sleep and food to keep going, how much more do our souls need routine resting in the Lord and being fed by His Word- our daily bread? The hamster wheel of life is a lot less dizzying when He is there with you setting the pace.
