With all the bad news in the headlines and on TV, you are bombarded every day with negativity. If you watch much TV, you are also barraged with drug commercials and what would have been considered in the 1950s as pornography. It’s a good guess that not many people in this country like the direction in which it’s headed. The liberals hate anything and anyone who disagrees with them. Conservatives just want to see the country back on a reasonable economic, ethical and moral track. Atheists and nihilists are combative about what others believe. Many Christians just roll up into their own little reality of waiting for things to happen rather than taking action. It’s a confusing and perilous time we live in. Sometimes it’s too much.
Life comes at us fast these days. Just a few days ago, it was Monday. Then Sunday is here. Seems like yesterday. Cars move fast. People move fast. There are fast talkers. Just to listen to them can wear a body out. Do you ever feel like you need to take a break? Maybe you do. Maybe it is a good time to take a break. I don’t mean checking out of life. But finding some time each day in your schedule to clear your mind, focus on your mental and spiritual health. For my wife, she takes a spiritual break by studying the Bible. I can walk by her while she is doing her morning devotional and she doesn’t know I’m in the room. She begins her day with the Lord and that energizes her.
My day begins with writing The Daily Jot, which requires me to search the news, listen to the Holy Spirit, and also study God’s word. It gets me going. But by the end of the work day, around 4:00 pm (as I start around 6:00 am), it is time to take a spiritual and mental health break. I’m fortunate enough to have a hot tub, so I get in the hot tub, turn on the Western Channel and let my mind wind down. There is always a moral lesson with the old westerns—the good guy wins out, the bad guy gets his, men act like men, and women behave like women. There is a lot to learn. There is a lot of reinforcement of what I already know. But there are times when I don’t even look at the screen. My wife says she wonders what I am thinking because I appear far away.
There’s a lot of praising the Lord for my life, my family, my church family, my work. There’s thinking through some of the issues we all face on a daily basis. It is my way of recharging, because most of the time I go back to work after 5:00 pm. We would be healthier if we just worked a spiritual break into our daily schedules–Some time with the Lord or even just with your own private thoughts. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:13-15, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them; And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Take a spiritual break. Be assured in Christ. It will serve you well.
