Embracing Change in Our Spiritual Journey
HELLO FRIENDS,
The rain, crisp air, football, and pumpkin spice in everything- these are all the sure tell signs that we are well into the fall and with the fall comes routine. As helpful as routine can be, unfortunately sometimes our routines can also lead us into a rut. Not just within our schedules, but our habits. Specifically, our spiritual habits.
Last Sunday, during the 11:00 am service Anna Rivera (one of the key leaders of our church and wife of our youth pastor) shared with us a word that she sensed was from the Lord and for our church. I believe that this word can also speak to those of us that feel like we may be stuck, or in that rut:
Isaiah 43:19-20: For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. The wild animals in the fields will thank me, the jackals and owls, too, for giving them water in the desert. Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland so my chosen people can be refreshed.
As Anna shared this word with our congregation, I received it as a challenge. A challenge to see God do something new in my life and a challenge for me to introduce something new into my daily routine. So, I have started to fall asleep while I pray. I know… Doesn’t Jesus scold his disciples for doing this exact thing in Matthew? Yes, but hear me out. Because my wife works nights I am often alone in leading the nightly routine. So, after getting the kids to bed and tidying up the house a little, I crawl into bed and throw on a show. However I usually don’t make it more than ten or twenty minutes before falling asleep. This is how I end about three nights a week, by falling asleep to Netflix’s “Top Picks for Jonathan”
Since Sunday though, I am trying something new. Instead of just mindlessly watching my tv, fighting my eyelids, I am turning the tv off, closing my eyes, and spending the last minutes of my day talking to God.
I really do want to see God do something new in my life and I think that in order to experience that I need to incorporate new disciplines that set me up to talk to Him, hear from Him, and encounter Him. What about you, what is something new that you can do in order to experience God in a new way?
Jonathan Lewellyn
Associate Pastor