i am ashamed

of the realization i came to while typing an email to a dear friend and sister.

i have not been praising God.

the main point of praise is the worship of God and i have not been doing it. during church i space out or am either antsy about getting out of the service or worrying about the week ahead. i haven't looked at the view from my spot on grandview drive and thought "wow. God made this. God made THIS." for so long. i have let my heart grow cold.

in a recent episode of grey's anatomy, meredith grey dies. she drowns actually. off a dock. when dr. shepherd saves her out of the water and gets her to the hospital they try for hours to revive her. she is hypothermic (she is a mere 58 degrees) and her heart has stopped beating.

i feel as tho that is me in my spiritual life. my heart has grown cold. it has stopped beating. there is no blood from the cross pumping through my veins.

as the episode progresses meredith is shown in some sort of afterlife where others who have gone on before her are trying to tell her that it is not too late for her. that she can still go back. but she needs to admit that she didn't fight to live. she took the opportunity of falling in the ocean to kill herself. she didn't swim, when she is a great swimmer. but she is too caught up in other things to admit that she didn't want to live, that she wanted the easy way out. eventually, she realized where she had let her heart get to, where she was willing to let herself die, and she admits it to the others before realizing what they told her and going back to life with her friends. the drs. were then able to revive her on the table by some sort of miracle.

it's almost like this for all believers. we all get to that point where we let ourselves drown. we are tired of fighting for the word. we are tired of living as a Christian in a non-Christian world. and we take the easy way out. but until we realize where our heart has gone and admit what our attitude was toward the whole thing, we will not have the opportunity to change. we will not be able to be revived by the breath of new life.

God will surround us in his loving arms and hold us close, warm up our hearts and claim us for his own again, if we are only willing to let go of our self-prescribed destinies.

are you willing to do that? am i? i want to be.