Sometimes I feel like I am in a long distance relationship with God.
My life often feels like an overflowing bath tub with a single square of toilet paper as my only tool to mop up the mess. In the rushing overflow I don’t get to seek God as much as I would like to; Bible study gets neglected, prayers get shortened and before I know it God is hundreds of miles away.
Typically when I find myself in this spot I also find myself in the throes of what I call Coloring Book Christianity. My Christian life hinges on the external and elementary rather than reality. When I behave like a Coloring Book Christian all my problems can be solved in sitcom-style half hours and my sins are just bad habits that can be cured with a Christian cliché stitched on a large fluffy pillow. I find myself treating church more like a social club and Christ like a snack food vending machine that only supplies for a shallow hunger.
Why do I do this?
If I were honest I would say I don’t want to dig deeper because I know what I will find. Behind the busyness I would find the need to please other people. Behind the problems I would find a lack of discipline and behind my bad habits I would find the sins that come from a hard heart.
It has never been my goal to lead a surface level life of faith; I’ve seen what happens to surface level Christians. Many of them give the rest of us a bad name while other bail on faith completely.
1 Peter 1:7 says, “trials come that your faith…may be proved genuine…”.
On a good day when I am basking in God’s victory and purpose I love this verse, but on a bad day the cost of genuine faith has come through the refinement of my soul. Refinement has NEVER been a quick fix or a watered down way to find intimacy with God. I’ve learned that authentic faith can only come through my authentic admission about my life, my whole life, especially the parts I don’t want to talk about at parties.
Today I will stop coloring and face the writing on the wall. God has called me to dig deeper and it is high time I found my shovel.
The Thoughts I Think 
Awesome. I am reading 1 Peter for my retreat coming up! Great thoughts! Love love.
The coloring book illustration reminded me that sometimes I think: Am I just pretending or do I really believe? The trials help me to know I have no where else to go and that God is reality. I’m so grateful for His grace & mercy!
Melissa, those are some great thoughts. Thanks for sharing 🙂