Maintenance Woes

Do you ever pause to consider how much of our lives are spent maintaining? Cars need routine maintenance. Manicures, pedicures, hair highlights - all need maintaining. The grass requires cutting, weeds need whacking, and flowers need transplanting. Computers need backed up. Nearly everything we spend money and time on requires maintenance.

It is not only time and money that all of these items requiring maintenance robs us of, but it robs us of vital time for prayer and study of God's Word. Maintaining all of the things of this world can slyly rob us of the time that is mandated for us to maintain our spiritual health and well-being.

Mark 4:19 instructs us, "The cares and anxieties of the world, and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless."(Mark 4:19)

These words powerfully illustrate how all of the trappings of this world sneak into our lives, many of them innocently, and then began to "choke and suffocate the Word" out of our lives. These words are powerfully illustrative. We must reflect on what we maintained today, how we spent our time, where our thoughts and efforts were directed -- and then we must ask ourselves, "Was time carved out on our schedules to read some of God's Word? Was time set aside to talk intimately in prayer with our Heavenly Father? Did we take time to think of someone other than ourselves?

If we answer, "No", to any of these questions, we need to begin evaluating and dissecting our daily agendas. By taking small steps in obedience, we will witness our lives becoming more fruitful in the things of God. May we never allow the distractions, pleasures, delights, glamour, riches, or passions of this world remove our focus from God and His Word.