Climbing, Sliding or Gliding
Brian Moore, Lead Pastor of Crosspointe Church shared this at Radical Mentoring’s Mentor Summit this past weekend . . .
“In your faith-walk, you’re either climbing or sliding. There’s no such thing as gliding!”
I asked a good friend the other day, “How are you and God?” He said “Just ok, nothing special.” Isn’t that what most of us would say if we answered that question honestly? We’re ‘gliding,’ or at least we think we are. Let’s talk about what those words might mean.
If you’re climbing, you’re in love with Jesus and know He’s in love with you. You make time for Him. You’re ‘in community’ with one or more guys . . . doing life together, talking regularly, challenging each other, keeping each other on track with loving involvement and accountability. Take my friends Don and Tim. Even through living in different cities, they spent an hour on the phone together every Thursday night for 12 years! “How are you treating your wife?” “Are you praying? . . . studying the Word?” “Are you struggling with temptation right now?” That kind of loving involvement, along with personal worship, reading the Word, meeting God in meaningful prayer, constantly expressing your gratitude to Him . . . these things keep us climbing.
Gliders will say that everything’s ok. “Church is ok; we make it to worship service most weeks.” “We don’t have time to get involved in a small group or Sunday school . . . just too much going on.” There’s no overt secret sin you’re harboring. You gave about 2% of your income last year, the same as the year before. “We’re good people.” Your kids are doing well, at least as far as you can tell. “It’s so hard to talk about God and spiritual stuff around here . . . mornings are rushed, bedtime is always running late . . . it’s just hard.” Gliding or sliding?
If you’re ‘flying solo,’ it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to slide. The busyness of life, the requirements of work, marriage, kids . . . even church, all of these ‘good’ things pull us into thoughtless activity and away from intimacy with God. You have so much going on, you’ll get up early with the intent of spending time with Him, but you’ll look at the time, think how much you can get done if you beat traffic and get an early start . . . and it’s over. Another old adage, “Satan’s not as much about making us bad as he is about making us busy.” Busyness is the enemy of intimacy, with God, with our wives, our friends. If you can’t remember the last time you sat down and truly talked with God, listened to His voice and read His Word in a thoughtful, intentional way, you’re probably sliding, whether you know it or not.
“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Decide today to slide no more. Begin to climb again. Today. Now.
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Responses (1)
Thank you, wise, helpful, practical advice and connection. Well done!