I didn't want to get out of bed this morning.

     Ever felt like that?  Maybe more often than not you and I feel this way.  We echo Solomon's message that "toil is meaningless."  Yet, we have Adam and Eve to thank for this situation so we might as well get out of bed anyway.  The world awaits our interaction with either listening ears or blunt acknowledgment that we are just another human.  Why the negative this morning?  What has made the day this way that I don't want to get up, get going, pick up my cross and follow Jesus?  Yes, even I have bouts of spiritual apathy every now and then.  Looking at the headlines in the news, surveying your yet to be done list.  Not feeling good enough physically or mentally to engage those who are in our lives for better or for worse, and then those who have to commute!  What a mess we have made of our lives.  I imagine that Jesus felt some of our feelings in different situations.  Remember praying in the garden when the disciples couldn't even stay awake to pray for him and his pending crucifixion?  Remember all those conflicts with the religious authorities?  Remember when the town he was raised in wouldn't accept him or the town where he cast the demons into pigs and the town folk asked him to leave?  You see, people aren't so much different today.
     Now that I'm up, what do I do?  First I needed to get coffee!  Then I needed to read the Word.  Matthew 17 to be specific.  Then my journaling and finally writing the blog.  These focus my day and even though I might have wanted to stay in bed, I now am better prepared to enter the day and to let Christ live through me.  Maybe I'll have another cup of coffee though.  It certainly won't hurt.  It's my choice how I want to focus my day.  It's my choice whether I start my day off with Jesus or not.  It's my choice whether I will be a light unto my world or bring darkness wherever I go.  It's my choice whether I let myself get tangled up in the workings of the world or not.  You and I always have choices we can make.  Today I suspect I'll be called upon to give spiritual and not spiritually to those around me.  That might just upset my plans if it weren't for Jesus' direction in my life.  The enemy seeks to derail my day and to frustrate me.  Should I have the audacity to actually believe that my day is unfolding as God wants and that he works through me so that all things work together for His glory, I've accomplished much.  Maybe I'll even take a nap.  Jesus did.
     Things can go contrary to God's will if we don't put our day in his hands.  In fact the ratio of that happening is high if we don't prepare ourselves to be surrendered to him daily.  It's not necessary as much as it's essential to let him run the day instead of trying to do it on my own.  Being instant in and out of season to give a reason for the hope within us (Paul) is what we are called to do.  Picking up our cross is not just about telling others about Jesus.  It's picking up the litter by the mailboxes even if it's not your litter.  It's giving away free eggs to my neighbors as I have the excess to do so.  It's giving a ride to those who are in need.  The life Christ lives within us is changing with every choice all of us make.  Your choices affect how I choose and that's the way that Christ may interact with you today.  This blog may have been a wake up call to many of you.  Don't take this day for granted or just another day.  Today is given to us by God who wants us to have fellowship with him.  Yesterday doesn't matter and neither does tomorrow.  All we have in right now.  Right Now!  Remember it's always your choice.