A few posts back, a visitor left a comment that I seemed like a committed Christian, and I responded to him that I felt rather uncommitted because of the lack of updates to this site. And now I’ve gone almost two months without a real post. It makes me think of something a friend of mine was saying in the pulpit back in January:

I was driving to work one day when it hit me that I would be caught by surprised if the Lord was to return at that moment. My focus was so far away from God that I was not prepared for His return, and a song came on the radio – a modern rendition of Revive Us Again. It helped remind me that I had been putting God on the back burner while focused on other things, and what I needed at that time was a better relationship with God.

I often find that this blog is a good measure of where I am spiritually. If I’m on fire for God, I’m making weekly posts; I’m keeping our congregational website and Twitter feed up to date. If I’m thinking about it, I’m writing about it. That’s what I do. If I notice that I’ve gone weeks or months without a post, I know it’s time to reassess what I’m doing.

And that’s where I am right now. And it’s not like I’ve actively ignored my studies. It’s not like I’ve consciously turned from God. I’ve just been…distracted.

I think that’s why we’re reminded that God’s word is supposed to be a light for our feet in passages like Psalm 119:105. You’d never keep a flashlight shining behind you while walking in the dark. It has to be pointing the way you’re looking to be any good at all. Also, it’s good to remember Deuteronomy 6:6-9:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Bound to our hands. Set before our eyes. Written all around us. God’s word is supposed to be something constantly in the front of our minds and in the center of our lives. Distractions crowd it out, make Him seem less important. The things of this world seem so immediate, so pressing, so powerful, so necessary; but everything begins and ends with God. He doesn’t belong on the back burner.