What to Do When You’ve Been Coasting Spiritually

By any measure anybody was using, in 1737, John Wesley

was the most serious Christian in England. At Oxford, he led a

group that other students mocked as the Holy Club. The members

held each other to daily Bible study and prayer. They fasted

twice a week and visited the prisons. Wesley was ordained and

elected a fellow of Lincoln College. In 1735, he crossed the

Atlantic to preach in the new colony of Georgia. He came home

convinced the thing had accomplished nothing. In his

journal, he wrote one line that has followed him for almost 300

years. I went to America to convert the Indians, but oh, who

shall convert me? The truth was, Wesley had done every single

thing right and nothing happened in him. We'll come back to what

broke that open. But first,

welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger.

There was a stretch in my ministry when about the only

reason I opened my Bible was to find something to preach. I'd

read a passage, and the first question in my head was whether

it would work on Sunday. I knew better. I've told other men not

to do that. I read that way anyway for a while. I got

sermons out of it, and I came up empty in myself. Every long-term

Christian has stretches of what we may call coasting. And on the

outside, everything seems okay. You're still going to church.

You're still praying before meals. Nothing's falling apart,

and you're not in some obvious sin. But if you took an

inventory, nothing has grown in a while. The devotional time

slipped at some point and never came back. The hunger to know

God more is not there like it used to be. Coasting doesn't

always look obvious from the outside, which is why nobody

sounds the alarm, including you. There's a short book near the

end of the Old Testament that handles this, I believe. It's in

Haggai 1, verses 5 and 6. This is what the Lord of Heaven's

armies says. Look at what's happening to you. You have

planted much, but harvest little. You eat, but are not satisfied.

You drink, but are still thirsty. You put on clothes, but cannot

keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them

in pockets filled with holes. Here's the situation. God's

people had come back from exile and started rebuilding the

temple. Then the work stopped, and 16 years went by. Meanwhile,

they finished out their own houses. Verse 4 is pretty blunt,

asking why they're living in paneled houses while God's house

lies in ruins. In the older translations, verse 5 reads,

consider your ways. The Hebrew is stronger than it sounds in

English. It says, set your heart upon your ways, and the word for

ways is roads. Set your heart on the you've been traveling. Look

at where your feet have been taking you. Then look at how God

makes his case, because this is a that fits a Christian

Christian. He never asked them how they feel about God. He

points to their output and tells them to read it. Planted much,

harvested little, eating without getting satisfied, wages going

into a pocket with holes in it. God hands them a list of results

and lets the results speak for themselves. That's a different

test than the one most of us run. We check our feelings about God

and conclude that nothing's wrong, because the feelings

aren't terrible. We still love God. Haggai says count the

harvest instead. And look at where the trouble came from.

Verse 9 says it. "They were busy building their own fine houses,

and all that effort went somewhere. Coasting in one part

of your life almost always means the energy got spent in another

part. And most people can tell you where if they stop and

look." Then comes God's instruction in verse 8. And it's

"Go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild

my house." He didn't ask for a feeling or a new attitude. He

tells them to go get wood. Look at what happened. After they

obeyed, verse 14 says, "The Lord stirred up their spirit. The

hunger came back on the far side of the obedience. They didn't

wait to feel like building. They built. And God supplied the

stirring." So start with the inventory. What has grown in the

last year? Then pick one thing and do it this week. Something

small enough that you'll still be doing it in a month. One

prayer, or two minutes in the Gospel of Mark before you look

at your phone. One prayer at the kitchen table that isn't about a

crisis or just praying for a meal. In fact, on May 24, 1738,

Wesley went to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. His

own journal records how he went. He says he went very unwillingly.

Somebody there was reading aloud from Luther's preface to the

Book of Romans. That's where it happened. He wrote that his

heart was strangely warmed and that he felt he did trust in

Christ alone for his salvation. "The man who had fasted and

crossed an ocean to preach finally had the thing all of it

had been pointing at." Notice what he was doing when it came

to him? He was going to one more meeting he didn't feel like

attending. It was a small step, but he took it anyway, and God

met him there. Wesley had a phrase for the years before that

night. He called it a fair summer religion. Everything in

good order and no weather in it yet. It's not today's challenge.

Take ten minutes tonight and do what Haggai said. Consider your

ways. Write down what has grown and what hasn't in the past year

and be honest with yourself about it. If the answer's

nothing, then write nothing. Then look at where your effort

went instead because it went somewhere. Write down the house

you've been paneling and then pick one practice you can think

of and start it tomorrow. Don't wait until you want

ask them how they felt about you first. Thank you that you

stirred up their spirit after they picked up that first piece

of timber. For everybody listening who's been coasting

and knows it, give them the honesty to look and the grit to

start one small thing. Meet them in the way you met Wesley in a

room he almost skipped. In Jesus' name, Amen. If you need

prayer today, I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a

voicemail at

DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com/Voicemail . I listen to every single one

and it would be an honor to bring your name before the Lord.

Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.

Remember, God stirred them up after they started building.

Pick up one piece of timber this week. Come back next time for

more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.

Until then, God bless and have a great day.