Daily Devotional

So what's this whole thing even about?


Good question, and to properly answer that, I need to sit back and share a bit about the genesis of this whole thing, which goes back to Church sermon from a few weeks ago. Admittedly, I don't make it to Church as often as I would like, or as often as I should. There are all sorts of excuses I can, and do make for this. Oh I don't have time, oh our 2 year old son won't behave and sit through the whole thing. Oh it's a 45 minute drive to the Church we go to (more on that another time). Oh this afternoon is my best chance to get the lawn mowed over the next week, etc. I'm sure many of us find ourselves in this boat, or find ourselves making these excuses for ourselves on why regularly attending Church just doesn't fit into our busy, busy lives.


Well, as luck would have it (or more likely, God's will), we just so happened to make the trek to Immaculate Conception Catholic Church that fateful Saturday afternoon to hear a fantastic sermon by Father Huber. It was all about making time for God in our lives a priority, and it harkened back to a bible school lesson I remembered from 3rd grade. The gist of the sermon was that when we try to squeeze God into the space in our everyday lives, He, and our faith, are often the ones that get pushed to the bottom of the priority list, as we scramble to deal with the commitments of work, paying bills, and the recreational activities in our life. When we finally get to the end of the day, we either forget, or have a very rushed shoehorned time to dedicate to personal reflection, prayer, and connecting with God. But, what's really the whole point of this rat race we call life? Is it to get that project done at work? Is our sole mission in life to get that mortgage paid off? Is Billy's Tee-Ball practice the reason the Good Lord put on this earth. Of course it isn't, but it's easy to forget that when we're in the stress-filled moment and facing a deadline.


The bible school visual I remember that drove this point home back in my childhood, and instantly came to mind as I listened to Father Huber, was taking a glass Mason Jar, filling it with sand, which represented the "stuff" that makes up the routine day-to-day activities in our lives. Then, when you try to take 3 golf balls, representing God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, they're isn't any room for them to fit into the jar. Now dump the sand out, put the 3 golf balls into the mason jar, and add that same volume of sand back into the jar, and everything fits! The message is, prioritizing God and our faith first each day, we'll still have time to squeeze everything else (the sand stuff) in afterwards. But the same doesn't work in reverse.


And that was essentially what Father Huber was saying as well. As a Catholic Priest, he has to spend time knocking out 5 devotionals a day, and he shared with us how much he struggled with that in his early days as a Priest, that is until he began to set aside times dedicated to completing these tasks. Once he did, he had no problem completely these 5 periods of devotion as well as the rest of his day to day activities.


It's a simple message and a simple concept, but like many things in life, the simple things are often the hardest to follow through on and execute.


And so that's really the first half of the genesis of this Daily Devotional blog, it's my set aside time of day, Monday through Friday, to take time, sit back, reflect, and devote my time to God and spreading his message. I figured if I'm going to take the time myself for this, I may as well try to share my faith with fellow followers of Christ as well. Maybe someone too can benefit from reflection, and share their own thoughts to benefit my faith journey as well.


So come back Monday! In that post, I'll be diving into really the second half of where this blog comes from, or the other mission I want to fulfill.


Thanks for reading, and God Bless You!