At the heart of it all....

It has been a long time since I sat at this keyboard to write, and much has happened in the intervening time. I have had various bugs that have been going round and just have not felt up to it. For this I apologize. It turned out, however, that my blood pressure had slowly been creeping up. In fact it was so high it was of the charts. So packed away with some tablets and general advice about de-stressing and lifestyle. I took the the tablets and cut down massively on the caffeine, and I (ironically) feel so very much more energetic.

Still all this got me thinking (again). It is amazing how this simple organ beating away inside me keeps me alive, despite all the disrespect I have given it and working far harder than it should ever have had to. It is still there, giving me a chance at life. When I paid a bit of attention to the signals it was giving me, it rewarded me with a new burst of life.

Behind the scenes in our lives is God, despite all we throw at him, he is there working far harder than he should have to. It is very easy to allow a growing malaise in our relationship with God. Bit by bit we can find excuses as to why we can not do this or that. Bit by bit the pressure on our lives builds up and bit by bit we neglect that all important relationship. He does not turn away from us and give up, no matter how far and how hard we push against him. As your life moves away from God increment by increment it is easy not to notice the affect it is having on our lives. Just as I had assumed that my lethargy was due to a virus rather than seeing that my neglect had resulted in my heart struggling to keep my head above water, we find something missing in our lives.  God is struggling very hard to keep us on the right path, even to the point that he has to carry us. When you start to pay attention to the relationship and correct the neglect, you instantly see the rewards in your life.

Working at living a Christian life is not always easy, but if we keep God at the heart of our lives there is a grounding of peace among all the chaos around us. It has been all to easy to get caught up in moving, organizing new schools, sorting out loose ends etc. I had let it all sit on top of me, rather than finding that time to find peace. A long way from now (I hope) even  my faithful heart will stop it's beats, but even then God will not let go. That I think is worth remembering.