inexorablyloved

I write for our student-run newspaper for my school. I like it, but sometimes I have a hard time writing on the topic assigned to me. Not with this article. It is from my heart. And so, I wanted to share it with you…who probably cannot relate to it completely (you don’t have chapel 4 times a week), but perhaps can relate an eensy bit.

I love chapel. Really, I do. Being able to come together as a group and be encouraged and exhorted by speakers, to worship God together as a community, and to allow God to speak to us through the speakers is really a great privilege. I can think back to various chapel services in my two years here and pinpoint exact moments when God convicted me, showed me love, or really used a message to open my eyes to new truths, and I am sure that many of you can say the same. Chapel is a brief interlude in our days, a fleeting moment when we come together before the Lord in a wonderful gathering of souls—but issues arise when we think that chapels are the essence of our spiritual lives.

If we rely on chapel for time to worship and spend with God, for Him to speak to us with utter clarity, then we probably will do fine while at CIU. When we leave this wonderful place, however, we’ll soon find that our spiritual lives fall limp and lifeless. Chapel cannot sustain our spiritual lives. Church cannot sustain our spiritual lives. And though they are encouraging and I would dare say perhaps essential, they should not become the bulk of our spiritual journeys.

Life is lived in the mundane moments; in walks to classes and random meals, in fleeting conversations at the salad bar and research in the library. Life is lived in the brushing teeth, writing papers, doing dishes moments that dominate every single day. Your life won’t always have chapel. It won’t always have Christian friends. In fact, some of you will go places where it won’t even have church. Some of you will go where you and you alone are the church. What will happen then, when what you are used to relying on for spiritual food is gone? When all you have is the mundane moments?

My exhortation is two-fold. First, make sure that the friendships you are forming here are not merely friendships based on fun and shared experiences. Make sure that you are taking the time to spiritually pour into your friends. Tell them what God is teaching you, ask them what He is teaching them. Be intentional. Pray with one another. Share burdens with one another. Hurt. Cry. Laugh. Don’t waste this time of ready-made community and only use it for leisure, not growth. Friends that you can play with can be found anywhere. Friends that you can grow with are rare.

Second, don’t allow personal time with God to be put on a back burner. It is so easy to let school, work, relationships, and life in general take priority. But life will never be any less busy than it is right now, and if you don’t make “God and I time” a priority, it probably never will be. Take time and allow God to love on you, to speak to you, to convict you and encourage you. Learn about Him—not from the pages of a theology textbook but from spending time with Him. So many of us struggle with resting in the midst of our busy-ness and crammed schedules. Make time to get alone and rest with Him. Let Him show you what Sabbath rest really is.

These aren’t easy things. Believe me, I know. But they are life-giving things—grace-giving things. Go to chapel still. Take advantage of it being here for us, so easily and readily accessible. Allow God to speak to you through all of the speakers and songs and special days. Learn and grow. But don’t allow your spiritual life to be limited to between 10:50 and 11:45 every day. Let it ooze into all your seconds of all your minutes of all your days. Allow it to seep into the pores of conversations, allow it to direct what you do when you’re bored, allow it to slowly but surely transform your life. Be purposeful in forming friendships that will sharpen and be purposeful in taking time to spend with God. And when you do that, your mundane moments will begin to be changed. Your life will begin to be changed.

Don’t waste another day. Real life, life to be had in abundance, is waiting.