| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time” Our Bible verse for today: “Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.” Romans 12:11-12 (CSB) Our thought for today: “Don’t be too easily satisfied.” I think most of us are too easily satisfied. Or more precisely, we allow ourselves to be too easily satisfied with mediocrity. We’re content with less than the best because it’s easier that way. Striving to do our best and to be our best can be hard work. But it’s also small. I mean, it leads to living small rather than living large. It results in sighs and shrugs as we plop down on the couch and binge on Netflix, rather than going out and doing something meaningful. I came across a convicting and inspiring quote the other day in a little devotional book I use called, “Disciplines for the Inner Life”. The statement is from writer Phillips Brooks. It’s a little lengthy, but worth the extra minute or two it will take to read it: “The great danger facing all of us – let me say it again, for one feels it tremendously – is not we shall make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel that life has no meaning at all – not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life’s greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to render the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God – and be content to have it so – that is the danger. That someday we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with the husks and trappings of life – and have really missed life itself.” Too many of us are busy with “the husks and trappings of life” and missing life itself because we’re wasting our time on things that ultimately matter little, while making excuses for not doing the things that matter a lot. Or, we’re busy doing nothing at all. We end up with a life lived small – small in terms of the kinds of things we do (or don’t do), and small in terms of spiritual growth. It’s a stunted life that was content and satisfied with mediocrity rather than enthusiastically striving for the best that life has to offer – the best that God wants for us. In Romans 12:11-12 Paul urges us not to be lacking in diligence and zeal. Are you? Are you lacking in those two critical qualities? Diligence and zeal are essential elements in a life lived well, a life that makes the most of the gift of time God grants to us each day. Let’s not be too easily satisfied with a life that is less than it could be. Don’t be satisfied with too little. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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