It has been a very busy start to the summer with travel. From vacation to camp to now the
Mexico Missions Trip, My suitcase is meeting its yearly mileage quota.
Packing has never been a strong suit for me. My wife, being very detail oriented, begins the
packing process early giving herself ample time to make sure she has everything she needs. My
philosophy takes a different approach: wait until the day before, grab clothes from every drawer,
and hope you grabbed the right amount.
It is during this process that sometimes things are left and forgotten. The first rule of packing is
make sure you have the essentials…clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, etc.
Yet, when rushed, these essentials can often fall out of mind and to the wayside.
The same thing can happen in our spiritual lives as well. When we allow our focus to shift away
from responsible living with wise decisions, it can lead us to a place of missing and forgetting
the essentials of our walk with Christ.
What can lead to this happening? While it can take place in many different ways, one of the
obvious ways it happens is when we focus too much on the temporal. We amplify the things of
our lives that don’t have spiritual merit to the point where they squeeze out the time and focus
we should be giving to spiritual matters.
This can happen when we face difficult trials in our lives. We feel pressured and overwhelmed
which can keep us from mentally prioritizing the spiritual realities that we need to for our spiritual
health. We let our situations block out the life-giving connection that God desires us to have.
This can happen when we harbor sin in our lives. We resist spiritual accountability and truth
because it brings us to a place of conviction. We neglect the spiritual essentials because it
reveals the change and repentance that is needed within us.
So, we can understand some reasons why we might neglect the spiritual essentials, but what
are these essentials that we often neglect? Our daily Bible reading, prayer, church attendance
can all be recognized as essentials for our spiritual growth, and can be some of the easiest we
excuse when we fail to prioritize them to our own detriment.
The summer is always busy….and so is the fall, and the winter, and the spring. The calendar of
the modern American always seems to be full. We need to prioritize not missing the essentials
because of it. Maybe it will take some trimming within our lives, creating some margin. Maybe it
will take getting some things right in our hearts that we have been holding on to that are sapping
our spiritual desire.
Don’t be like me packing for trips. You don’t have to miss out on the essentials. It simply takes
proactive steps to ensure we are prioritizing what God has told us will lead to a flourishing
Christian life.
Serving Together
Pastor Derek