Using church to stay away from God
By Amanda on Jan 1, 2010 in Featured
Come to find, I am not just too busy. I stay too busy. I have found that I tend to use all of the church events, youth events, and even wonderful people surrounding me as a way from being intimate with God. I am too tired, and there really is no time to sit quietly and think a thought in my head with all the things I do, let alone think about what God might want me to do. There is no time because I make it that way. I fill up my time with all of these “fun” and “great” things. No one would look at any of the things and say they were bad things to be involved with. And not that that is even the point. At least for me, I am not looking for other people to validate all the things I do. I am looking for a way to stay away from God.
The few times I went to church I would cry the entire time, just because I liked it so much and it felt great. Strange to say but I stopped going to church services. All of these things (including my own family) had me feeling so overwhelmed and emotionally drained it was too much to feel God as well. I would plan other things during the time I could actually attend the service or make my kids an excuse (sort of) of why I couldn’t go. And again, I wasn’t having to explain myself to anyone. No one really ever asked. (Everyone just assumes a pastor’s wife goes to church). I was just really good at convincing myself this is what I needed during this season of my life, it was too much to emotionally connect with God.
So you can now imagine why I keep saying in previous posts, “God is rewiring me”. After all these years of serving and being married to a youth pastor its amazing what I still get wrong. I don’t have a “wrap it up in a bow” ending to this. It’s still pretty fresh and I’m understanding the backward-ness of my thinking. I am learning I can clear my calendar of events, draw stricter ministry boundaries and become way more intentional with the people I do spend time with so that I have time. Time for God and time for my family and time for me. It’s a work in progress.
Isn’t God so faithful to keep drawing us back to Him? His grace and forgiveness is amazing. He really just wants that intimate connection with us. He is a good God!
Shari | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
Right there with you, Amanda! Cleaned my house last Sunday instead of packing all the kids out the door. Less busy = more communion. What a line to draw, because not all good things have to be something I participate in. Right now with four little kids under the age of 7, just getting to church is an event in itself. Have to find intentional time with God a priority…looking forward to being more committed to this as the new year begins. And as my 1 month old sleeps well at night:)
Praying with you for balance, and God to be the center of all you do (prayer for myself, too:)
Diana | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
I relate to this. I go to every service and move through the motions. Sometimes I feel connected or filled, but most of the time I don’t. I continue to go and do it because it’s what I know God wants me to do. I just know, though, that He wants more out our relationship. What if I was like that with my husband? Spending time with him, going through the motions, but hardly ever really connecting – wouldn’t he notice and want more? The heart of the matter is the heart. I needs God’s grace, like you do, and I know I will find it in hearing the Gospel because hearing the Gospel IS a means of grace. When? *sigh* Even if God gave me an additional hour in my day, my sinful nature would lead me to use it for an activity other than reading my Bible or praying. He did give me church, though. It’s my job to focus in on Him, just like it’s my job to show interest in my husband. You can do it.
Cara | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
There was a time just before we were going to have Communion during a service that I looked over at my husband & said, “I can’t do this,” and I got up and left and walked home. At the time we lived in the parsonage near the church & I just cried all the way home.
I was so tired of just being there to be there and not really feeling the presence of God in any of it. How could I have Communion when my heart was so far away? I knew I would be honoring God more by leaving than I would be by faking it & staying. And in the time I had alone before my family came home I heard God saying to me…that’s the most honest thing you have ever done for me. From then on I have had a deeper more intimate relationship with him. I now find myself longing for those times when it is just me & God instead of doing everything I can to avoid them. Praying for you.
Jennifer | Jan 3, 2010 | Reply
Oh, I can completely and totally understand how you have been feeling. There was a period of time that I would have been mortified if anyone (ANYONE) could have known the true condition of my heart. Just like you, I was so busy doing good things and all of the right things, that no one would have ever guessed that I was ‘running on empty’. There was no reason for them to question my motives, I let them believe that I was delighted to be doing what I was and that I was completely in the will of God. I must have even had myself convinced of the same, because when He got my attention (finally), I was completely overwhelmed by how far I had let the situation go.
I am much more honest with Him and with myself now. And I feel so much closer to Him as well. One thing that I have noticed is that when I am ‘doing the thing’ for Him…I tend to not take everyone else so personally. I am in this for Him and not them anyway. Does that make sense? It seems to have been a BIG difference in my and my attitude!
Colleen | Jan 4, 2010 | Reply
I don’t have anything to add but just to say thank you all so much for your honesty, mu husband and I are totally in the same spot. We’re having the hardest time enjoying an authentic walk with God at his place of work, if you know what I mean. I’m praying through this one.
Ashley Christian | Jan 6, 2010 | Reply