Reality Check

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 112-114.

Opening Thought: Our words have power, when we  speak something, even if we know it is not true, we begin to believe it just a little bit. Say it enough times then suddenly it become inherent and you are not sure how you got from point a. to b. It doesn't help us that in our vernacular we often use hyperbole to make points. Hyperboles are points in speech where we exaggerate our statement to the extreme to drive home a position. This is normally done with the explicit understanding that a hyperbole is being used. I like hyperboles myself; I tend to speak with them, even Christ used hyperbole in his sermons. However, we must be mindful of our words, if when we are in a bad place, and we exaggerate our suffering, it can make it feel worse, as the exaggeration can blind us from the hope around the corner or from the lessons needed to be learned.     

The devotional begins with: Job 7:11-16

“Therefore I will not keep silent;
    I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
    I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,
    that you put me under guard?
When I think my bed will comfort me
    and my couch will ease my complaint,
 even then you frighten me with dreams
    and terrify me with visions,
 so that I prefer strangling and death,
    rather than this body of mine.
I despise my life; I would not live forever.
    Let me alone; my days have no meaning. 

Second Thought: When I was child, one of the first things I noticed was how often adults complained about life, it was even in the children’s cartoons, shows, and movies I watched. Often it was mixed with the premise that childhood and youthfulness was wasted on children, or that if only they could be young again and free from the burdens of adulting. Even today as an adult I see meme after meme on social media about how adulting is the worst. When it comes down to it, people, particularly adults, like to complain about having to be adults. Our passage today is a snippet from a larger collection of anguish, but the opening verse in chapter seven of Job speak to the dread of the labors of the next day. Thinking back to pre-industrial and technological advancement, labor was something else. Even simple tasks like delivering letters, heck, even writing a letter would have been a challenge, if you had the education to do so. Today we have better standards of living, education, and easements left and right, but all in all we still moan and groan about the days of labor or work ahead.

When I was young I worked at a large coffee franchise, and I work the drive-thru, now most of the people I worked with always had massive grumpy faces and would only cheer up when a customer would drive in. When the business transaction was finished they went back to the frowns and bitterness. I was about 17 at the time, just entering the realms of adulting. I refused to be like that, and I wanted to share my plethora of energy with my colleagues. I enjoyed riddles so I started posting riddles in the lunchroom for people to try to guess. It started giving my co-workers something to look forward to; what was the next day’s riddle? The games began to develop and by the time I had work there for six months everyone was generally happier, and more productive. I left that job for a few years to attend college, after four years I was between degrees and decided to try my hand again at shoveling coffee and donuts. When I returned to the same coffee shop, the joy was gone and all the employees I once knew had gone back to the bitter clock-in, clock-out adulting.     

Continual Work: Be mindful of what you say, your words have an impact on others and yourself! Also, be glad you have grown into adulthood, as adulthood means responsibility, duty, honor, and hard work – these are noble things. If you partner them with the hope and joy of Christ's love, all labor will be lighter and your ambitions more glorious. 

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I truly feel blessed because my ‘labors’ are a labor of love and faith. I get to help people, share with people, journey with people, all the while sharing the good news of Christ’s gospel and the general hope of God’s love for the world.  

Scripture time: Proverbs 13:4

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

This at first glance would seem like a slogan for capitalism, but rather it is a slogan for righteousness. It is the soul that is being critiqued, the values of the soul is the goodness by which we produce, sometimes that is physical or economical labors, for sure, we as responsible adults must tend to duty and maintain security for our families and communities. However, as members of Christ’s body we are called to extend the love for the self (including family and community) to the wider world. Those who feel a call of Christ in their hearts have a gift because if you make that your focal point for ‘adulting’, then it will never feel as a burden to be an adult rather as a golden opportunity to use the gift of righteousness in your soul and produce good fruits by your labors.  

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close:

·         “The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King, Jr.