My job responsibility compels me to meet many qualified professionals who are major donors for the organisation I am working with. Recently I had an appointment with a doctor who is looking forward to hear an update of a project he has been sponsoring for few years.
This was my second time meeting him. And as usual I waited for about fifteen to twenty minutes, because he was busy attending his patient. While I wait, sitting in the waiting room I remember the experience I had during my first visit. I remember how my heart was filled with compassion and sympathy toward the people who were in the room that day. I could feel their sufferings and their miseries. And I remember the spirit inside me praying for them and their family members whose heart were broken with worriedness and tension. I remember how my heart was reaching out to them with love and prayers. However during this second visit, I am so agitated that I am not even moved to pray or feel anything for the people around me. They look worried, tense and lost. But I was preoccupied with scrolling through my Facebook feed and peeping into what everyone was doing. Was I spiritually asleep? I didn't even bother to fight the state of being spiritually numb.
We all have a time when our heart travels far from God sometimes. The spirit within us seems quite and not inspiring at all. Is that because the spirit has stop talking to us? Is it because the spirit has left us? When we are too involved with the worldly things, we are deafen and distracted from the voice of God speaking to us. Our hearts get filled with so much of worldly stuffs that it loses its focus.
Luke 21:34 says "But watch yourself lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkeness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap."
The word of God instruct us to be alert and to stick with God always. There will be so many things the world will weigh us down, but if we keep looking to God and His spirit, we will continuously be led and be strengthen spiritually.
I have another story to tell you about how frustrating our life becomes when we are spiritually asleep and lose our focus on God. I was on my way to work in an auto rickshaw the other day, and the traffic was bad. We stopped at a red light and next to me was a little girl in her uniform with her father on a motor bike. She rested on her father back, seated comfortably. When the green light turned on and every vehicle started rushing. The father tried to squeeze in his way carefully between big rushing cars while making sure he rides gentle enough to make the ride comfortable for his girl. He was really very careful, but as the road was rough and bumpy the little girl's face turned grim and she started complaining. Likewise, I wonder, if we are also always fretting and complaining instead of enjoying the ride our Father is taking us through.
When we lose our focus on Him we get overwhelm by frustration, anger, tension, stress etc; and crowding our lives with full of complaint and anxieties. But when our focus is on Him alone, we will be full of His peace, gratitude, joy and all His goodness. When our focus is on Him alone, we will be spiritually awaken all the time; which means we will be strengthen to fight every fight in this world. We will be strengthen to reach out to our near and dear ones and help them fight the battle they are going through. No matter what we go through in our life we are always victorious and conquerors because of the finish work of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:37).
Each new day I am experiencing the joy and the strength of being a conqueror through Jesus Christ as I give my life to Him, to be controlled and led by the Holy Spirit and I am persuaded that being the chosen ones we all stand on victory ground.
"Let us keep awake then and watch at all times, praying that we may have the full strength and ability to be accounted worthy to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand in the presence of the Son of Man" Luke 21:36.