OK, it's been a while since I last blogged!  It's soon to be a new year, so I figure maybe it's time to turn over a new leaf and get back at my blogging.  As I write this, I am sitting in my father-in-law's Lazy-Boy (couldn't have come up with a better name for how I feel right now!) and deeply pondering my own spiritual state of affairs.  Alright, maybe I am not deeply pondering it, but I have been thinking about where I am at spiritually.

You know, there are times in my life in which I feel like I am firing on all cylinders, as if God and I are "hand-in-glove."  I don't really feel that way at the moment.  Truth be told, I feel a bit like the chair in which I sit, a Lazy-Boy.  It's been easy to put off reading my Bible, and prayers often seem flung heavenward like undirected arrows without lots of forethought.  I feel spiritually ho-hum.

Don't get me wrong.  I love God, and I am confident of His presence and the Spirit's guidance in my life.  But it's one of those periods in which my spiritual life is simply not on fire.  How about you?  Do you ever feel that way?  Ever feel like you're just going through the motions, like the things you used to do that connected you to God don't seem to be doing much for you?  Or maybe, you've lost your mojo and you have lapsed into old patterns and so the spiritual disciplines that once led you to growth have dropped out of your daily routine.

Whatever it is, sometimes we just go through seasons.  We go through times that we don't feel particularly close to God...don't feel like coming to church or attending a Care Group...don't feel like being spiritual right now.  Maybe there in lies part of the problem.  If we're not careful, we can slip into an all too common, but wrong, way of thinking that views spiritual matters in very limited terms: prayer, Bible study, attending church, Bible study, etc.  But for the Christian with a biblical perspective on life we must come to see all of life as spiritual.  That is to say, being a Christian isn't about a feeling of closeness to God (that will come and go a lot like feelings between two married people) or how many times one reads his or her Bible per week or how many minutes (or hours if you're really spiritual!) you spend praying every day or whether you attend church services every Sunday or multiple Bible studies every week.  As beneficial as these things are for a Christian, they are not the sum total of the Christian life.  Nor are they the only contexts in which spiritual things take place.

I think we find the answer to this issue of spirituality in Jesus' reciting of the Deuteronomy passage: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength.  To love God with everything clearly broadens our understanding beyond the Sunday morning worship setting and the Tuesday night Care Group and your morning devotions of prayer and Bible reading.  While it includes these, it is also about evenings around the dinner table with your family and about sitting at 3 red lights in a row as you're already 5 minutes late for work, and being patient with the cashier at the grocery store who seems to have messed up the last four customer receipts. 

So much of what we think of as spirituality has to do with things we can check off a to-do list.  To-do lists are comforting, and as a perfectionist, I know from experience the joy I have in finishing a task.  Knowing I have accomplished the spiritual things I set out to do today helps me feel like I am making headway.  However, if I am not careful I can easily feel that my spiritual work is over once those few things are through and then go on to act as if I have never read the Bible as I sit yelling at the person in front of me who is going 40 in a 55 (or going 54 in a 55...that's even more irritating!) or when I finally get home to those I am called upon to care for and love most deeply and yet lose my patience.  This separation of spiritual and unspiritual can lead me to talk to people as if I have never spoken to God at all today!  Clearly, this is not what Jesus had in mind.

There is another statement by Jesus that helps clarify this matter of spirituality.  Even a cup of cold water given in my name... Jesus is essentially saying that as simple an act as giving someone who is thirsty a cup of refreshing water is a spiritual act!  In other words, there is no division between spiritual and unspiritual moments.  All of life is potentially spiritual.  Spiritual is not something limited to moments of ecstatic feelings or worship-filled songs or something that only happens in cathedrals or on mountain tops.  If God is after a relationship with us that takes in every moment of our lives, than everything becomes spiritual.  Jesus makes this clear when he answers a Samaritan woman's question about where the appropriate place to worship God is.  He says it doesn't matter!  The type of worshipers the Father seeks are those who worship in spirit and in truth.

So, back to my Lazy-Boy...  I am still not feeling like a spiritual giant today, but at least I am reminded that my being spiritual is more than my feeling spiritual.  And as I look around at a room full of kids (mine and two of my wife's friend's children), I see that it may not be long and a cup of cold water will be due!