Interlude

This morning I watched with interest as the news reported that a former Pakistani Prime Minister had been assassinated, that one of the persons killed by the tiger at San Fransisco zoo had climbed up on the fence and tormented the animal, and that a young Washington woman and her boyfriend had killed their family on Christmas Day. What a change from the news of the past few days, news of carolers, light contests, best ideas for Christmas gifts, and holiday greetings from soldiers in Iraq. It seems the "holiday" spirit has been quickly replaced by the same old violence, murder and tales of stupidity. The good news, the holiday spirit, seems to have been nothing more than an interlude.
The Israelites had many such interludes. There were times of great persecution, times in captivity, times away from their God, times that I am sure, seemed to last forever. Those times were interrupted by times of prayer and sacrifice, times of repentance and return to God. Unfortunately those times were simply short interruptions, brief interludes.
It seems to me that our society shares a similar experience. Most of the time, most of us are mostly concerned with ourselves, what we do, what we have, how we look and how we can get more. But there are times, times of tragedy or traditional times when we, as a prominently Judeo-Christian society, turn to God for a short time. Times like the 9-11 bombing when we as a nation prayed together, times like tornadoes and storms and fires when we as a society look to God, if only for a moment. Then there are times like the "holy" days, Christmas, Easter, etc, when as a country many sing of God, talk about His Son and for just that season seem to have a more spiritual focus. And so several times a year, we participated in a short spiritual interruption of our lives, lives fraught with snippets of spirituality, brief spiritual interludes.
I am glad we live in a world that has not completely forgotten about the King of Kings, the Creator of heaven and earth. I am glad we turn to Him when our hearts are heavy and our needs are great. But I wonder how we can make the interludes longer and longer until they become who we are instead of what we do? How can we increase the amount of time we think on spiritual things? How much time should Christians spend thinking about God? Shouldn't our faith be more than an interruption in our routine? I am sure for some, even the scheduled worship times are nothing more than necessary interludes, but isn't that sad? What can we as the Lord's people do to make God foremost in our thoughts?
I am convinced that until He is more than a brief interlude in our lives, He cannot be Lord! He will not be King of our hearts if He has to make an appointment to sit on the throne! There is no place in the Word that reminds us to have a sporadic faith--nowhere.
So now that another spiritual interlude has passed, I pray that we, we--God's people, will live, speak, act in manners that example to the world that God is more than interlude with us--That He is the source of all that we are, it is in Him we breathe, we act, we love and we live. His presence in our lives is not fleeting for He is not a guest in our hearts--this is where He lives!
Peace
Neva