Why Should I Journal?

Why is it so important to do devotions every day? Let's change the question a bit. What if God traded our eyes for His? What if, by some divine dispensation, we were allowed to see things through His eyes... to see, not as man sees, but as God sees? What if we were granted a momentary metamorphosis and saw the true, spiritual condition of people? Would we be heartbroken or heart-lifted at what we saw? Sad or surprised? In anguish or in awe?

What if we could see, not how we look to one another, but how we look to God? What would happen if we could pray, in faith, a prayer like that of Elisha regarding his servant?

Then Elisha prayed and said, "O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:17)

What would the people in your church look like if they snacked on meager morsels of food during the week, and then ate only one good meal on the weekend? You know the answer, don't you? You'd find yourself surrounded by emaciated, gaunt Christians in desperate need of nutrition.

And how would these undernourished believers fare against a demonic adversary? Can you imagine how this army would look? You'd see threadbare skeletons with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes sockets, lined up like phantom warriors from a sci-fi movie. Weakened by famine, the shriveled militia could barely stand at attention; each one would struggle to find the strength to keep his or her boney frame upright.

Could this "army" conquer an opposing force?
No way. No earthly general would send them out to fight.

Well, then, how about the army of the Lord? What of those who gather on Sunday mornings? Are they spiritually nourished to fight the battles ahead? Considering what most members of God's army subsist on-an occasional tidy snack from a devotional book, and perhaps one average sized meal on Sundays to satiate their religious concscience-you'd have to conclude that the army of God has some serious work to do.

Have you ever wondered why marriages seemingly crumble overnight, and-out of the blue-Christians leaders fall to luring temptations?

The truth is, no marriage suddenly disintegrates, and no one suddenly falls away from Christ. For that matter, no one dies of anorexia after missing a day or two of meals.

It could better be described as a slow decline-slow, spiritual starvation, barely even discernible to the outside observor. The malnourishment of God's sons and daughters happens over time, as they eat less and less. Then, in their weakness, they do something that shocks everyone, finally revealing what was really going on in their spiritual lives.

Did you know that more than 80 percent of those who call themselves Christians read their Bibles only once a week? And that's usually on Sundays, at church. They come to church to get their spiritual fill, and then snack on devotional tidbits for the rest of the week (if they do even that).

I wish that for just one day God would change the way our eyes work, so we would see ourselves spiritually. We'd see most American churches filled with skeletal, hollow-eyed saints, looking as if a strong wind would blow them away like tumbleweeds.

Which is why, when some new trend floods America that pushes our nation further away from God, further away from our spiritual roots, the church is unable to withstand the tide. We simply don't have the strength.

So what's the solution?
In a recent edition of the American Journal of Medicine, doctors published a highly revealing conclusion:

The health of 21st century America will no longer be determined by what people can get the doctors to do for them. The health of America today will be determined by what the doctors can get people to do for themselves.

Do you see how this prescription applies equally to the church? If we eat only once a week, then it's no wonder that the church is weak and struggling. But fresh bread can change all of that. Regularly dining on fresh bread makes for a stalwart, strong, developed army-the only kind of force that will ever make a difference in this world.