Feel The Power!

“Give God the first minutes of your day.”

Normally this isn’t too much of a stretch for me. As an aspiring writer, my alarm clock starts chiming at 4:50 so I can spend time moving a chapter a little farther down the road, editing a magazine article, or tinkering with a short story before work. Until this week. Until I signed a little pledge card Sunday morning and dropped it in the offering plate. Until I spent Sunday and Monday nights coughing and Tuesday night staring at the ceiling while the digital clock on the nightstand next to me counted down the minutes until sunrise.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? Because when the alarm started beeping this morning, the question running through my head wasn’t “I’m so tired, how am I going to make it through the day?” or even “What am I worried about that I couldn’t sleep last night?” No, the question battering the inside of my skull at 4:50 this morning wasn’t so politically correct. It went something like this, “Why am I doing this? Do I really think God is going to show up?”

Wow. Amazing how your thoughts crystallize after three nights without sleeping. How about it LifePoint? Am I the only one struggling to get up this week, secretly wondering if God is really going to show up? Is anybody who agreed to start giving God their first dollars this month, now having second thoughts? Is anybody else wondering whether they will really hear from God if they fast a Starbucks latte?

Or am I the only one?

As I read this post, I start to think that maybe I’m asking the wrong question. When I wrote my name on that card Sunday morning, I don’t remember seeing a box for God to check or a line where he could sign. I don’t remember hearing him say that he was in on this deal at all. Because when we get right down to it, the question that I should be asking isn’t “God, are you really going to show up if I get out of bed?” but, “Don, are you really going to be obedient even if you don’t know whether or not God will show up?”

The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews says in Chapter 11 verse 1 that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Sure enough to make decisions based on what we know God wants us to do even when we aren’t confident of the results. Faith isn’t something you stumble into, but it might require stumbling out of bed at 4:50 in the morning.

Is anybody with me?

- Don