Bridging The Gap

When I read back through old Christian testimonial blogs, my own or others', I am often convicted of my recent backsliding.

"Backsliding?!" you say?

Yes, backsliding. If I used to do better than I'm doing NOW, then I'm backslid.

Some of it can be attributed to the inescapable fact that I'm older, but much of it is due to my losing a good portion of the zeal I once had. When I was going through trials at the hands of misguided ministry, I was afraid this would happen, and I vowed right then that I would take the lessons I was learning about 'things not to do in ministry' and apply them later when trying to minister to others. But, as I feared, the most obvious result, known commonly as "Christian Burnout", has come upon me to a great extent.

Sound familiar?

Are you suffering from this problem? Lacking the zeal you once had for the Lord? Feeling lukewarm or outright cold? Left your first love for the Lord, His Word, His work, His people, His ways?

Time for a REVIVAL. Time to pray back through and STAY that way for more than a few minutes or hours. Time to tighten your grip on the plow and go back to work. We can't use the things done to us by others as excuses to stop living for God, unless we want to have a hard time standing in front of the Righteous Judge when our time comes. Looking at it from another perspective, let's remember how great our reward might be if we ENDURE all our trials and ultimately learn to DO WELL in such times.

Preaching to myself. Hey, all I can tell you is: if it WORKS, then DO it!