A Timely Suggestion

            We’ve been doing a sermon series based on contemporary country music in the Wheatland Parish.  We play a relatively recent country song and then talk about the message of the song and how it does or does not apply to our faith.

            It’s a sermon series that’s gotten a lot of positive reaction, probably the most of any sermon series I’ve done.  So, naturally, I started thinking about why.

            Part of it is probably that it starts with something that’s familiar to us.  We’re all most comfortable with things with which we’re familiar.  Jesus recognized that, too, of course.  When he told his stories, his parables, he used settings and situations that were familiar to people at the time.  Some of those settings and situations are not so familiar to us today, because times change, but many of them still are.  Even when they’re not, we can think of situations that are analogous to stories like the prodigal son and the good Samaritan.

            Another advantage to starting with the familiar is that it makes it easier to relate the things we talk about on Sunday to the things we do the other six days of the week.  That’s how faith is supposed to be.  Our religious beliefs are not supposed to be something we only think about on Sunday.  They’re supposed to be something we carry with us every day.  They’re supposed to be part of our lives.

            That’s not exactly a new thought from me, of course.  You’ve probably heard lots of preachers tell you that you need to make faith a part of your everyday life.  You may even agree with that sentiment.  The question is, how do we do it?

            It’s a problem.  It’s not that we don’t want to, necessarily.  It’s just really easy to get sidetracked.  Everyday life has a way of attracting our attention.  That’s true for me, too.  It may be my job to work on “church stuff”, but there’s a difference between working on church stuff and really thinking about faith.  So what do we do?

            Well, I have an idea.  It’s pretty simple, really.  There’s a button on the side of my watch that makes it chime on the hour.  Lots of watches have that; I’ll bet yours does, too.  A lot of cell phones will do it now, too.  If yours doesn’t, I’ll be there’s an app for it.

            Anyway, the idea is just to push that button.  Then, when we hear the chime at the top of the hour, we take a minute or so to think about our faith.  Maybe we think about how faith might apply to what we’re doing at the moment.  Maybe we say a quick prayer for a loved one.  Maybe we ask God to be with us.  Nothing long or complicated—this isn’t supposed to be an hourly devotional.  It’s just supposed to be a quick reminder, every hour, to make sure that God is a part of our everyday life.

            I’m going to try it.  I hope you will, too.  It’s just a simple way of making sure we don’t forget about God as we go through our week.  It might not change your life or anything.  But then again, it might.