The Full-Time Christian

     I swat at the alarm clock at oh-dark-thirty each morning.  I have grown accustomed to fooling myself each day (as many of us have) by hitting the snooze bar, thereby delaying my actual wake-up time by twenty minutes or so.  After my second reprieve from consciousness, I sit up, turn off my alarm clock and snuggle with the dog for a few moments before I head off to the shower to begin my daily routine, which has been well rehearsed over the years.  Even if I get up on time and move swiftly, it seems as though I leave for work at the same time everyday with very little change to my routine.  I’m normally running a bit late by the end of the week for some reason.  It’s certainly not due to hard work!

     The only bad part about my morning routine is that it does not allow much time for God.  I try to squeeze in a quick devotional and a short prayer, in which I thank God for His blessings and ask him to consider my prayer requests, whatever they happen to be that particular day, and then it’s off to walk the dog before heading out to work.  And so the pattern goes day after day.

     I tell myself that I will make up for it later when I get home.  When I arrive home, I am pressed to spend time with family, do a few things around the house that have been on the back burner for a while, check email (we can’t live without that now, can we?), which ultimately leads to surfing the net for hours that pass like minutes and, of course, spend useless hours in front of the television until my eyes start to droop.  Then it’s off to bed.  I brush my teeth, get a few things ready for the next day, if I’m not too tired, and climb into bed.  Occasionally, I will catch my second wind and read for a while, or take in just a bit more television, just to relax.  Sometimes I fall asleep while doing this.  The whole while, though, I tell myself that I will say my prayers before I go to sleep, which sometimes happens if I don’t fall asleep first.  On those occasions on which I’m actually awake enough to say my prayers, I get in my sleep position and then say them.  I usually don’t finish.  I manage to get myself comfortable enough to fall asleep while saying my prayers and then do.

     But I’m a good Christian.  I go to church, I put money in the collection plate each week, I’m active in the church, and I believe the Bible to be the word of God.  So, He’ll understand that I just have a hard time fitting Him into my routine, right?  It’s not like I don’t pray, or read the Bible occasionally.  At least I’m not a non-believer!

     Well, that was my thought process until a sermon one Sunday, a Sunday that fell on my birthday coincidently.  The minister said something that really made me think, which is an accomplishment in and of itself.  You’d have to know me to understand that.  He asked when those in the world, meaning non-believers, see us, do they see something that distinguishes us as Christians, and if not, why not?  Do we blend in seamlessly, or do we standout?  Is our behavior indicative of a believer, or do we merely follow suit with our non-believing neighbors and reflect their sinful behavior?

     That’s when I realized that being a Christian is a fulltime job.  That may sound rather obvious and provoke a “duh” from some, but the truth of the matter is that it’s more demanding and challenging than it sounds.  In fact, it’s a career.  Think about it.  People work long, hard hours to be successful in their careers.  They pursue additional education and training to get ahead and be competitive.  So it is with the Christian life.  We need to delve into the Bible each day and pray, really pray, for all those things on our mind – thanksgiving, rejoicing, blessings, health issues, our friends, family and their needs, our church and its leaders, our government, the state of the world and so forth.  The litany of prayers is unending and demands that appropriate time be given it.  We need to spend hours each day praying and talking to God about such things.  The sad truth is that we’re lucky if we spend a few hours in an entire week.  We complain and feel abandoned when prayers seem to go unanswered.  After all, we did pray for something or someone once.  Why mention it again?  God is omniscient and doesn’t need us to repeat ourselves for His benefit, right? So, why spend so much time praying and repeating things?  The reason is simple.  Prayer is powerful.  Christ prayed often; He prayed devoutly, sincerely and passionately.  Prayer was a priority for Him.  Prayer alone is a fulltime job for a Christian.

It’s not for the faint of heart either.  Make no mistake about it.  Being a Christian, a devout Christian, is a task that demands total devotion and dedication.  We must be on-call for God all day, every day, much like a physician.  We must rearrange our lives and our routines so that He is first and foremost.  Reading the Bible, and by that I mean studying it and not glossing over the words as one would a newspaper article, must take precedence over making coffee in the morning, reading the paper or checking email.  Daily prayer must supersede the evening news or our favorite television program.  Bible studies and Christian fellowship must become a staple and way of life.

Such change is not easy.  Oh, sure, it’s easy to say we believe, go to Church and feel good about ourselves.  We revel in being part-time Christians.  It allows us to spend as little or as much time dedicated to the Christian life as we can spare.  We especially feel good on those occasions when we spend extra time at church or make it to Bible study one week.  We pat ourselves on the back for a job well done.  In reality, we are playing right into Satan’s hands.  We are not changing; we are not fulltime Christians.  The distractions of this world engulf us and afford us only the briefest escape.  They quickly divert our attention and coerce us back into our routines, which are comfortable and familiar. 

     It is only through awareness of the great deceiver’s use of today’s distractions that we can be fulltime Christians.  Christ was (and is) a fulltime Christian.  His life serves as the model we must seek to emulate.  We must make God a priority everyday.  We must study His word and pray to Him sincerely and devoutly each day.  Only then will we be successful in serving Him.  Only then will non-believers see us as different and separate from the world.  Only then will our behavior distinguish us as Christians and servants of Christ.  The eyes of the world are on us.  What do you want them to see?