Mind the Gap Between Sundays

If you've ever visited a city with trains, you know they keep them hidden underground. You step off the platform into the train, or the tube, or the subway (not the sandwich), and they tell you to mind the gap. Get off your phone. Realize there's a gap between here and there.

That's where I want to land after looking at how Israel slid into what we're calling Christian atheism: knowing God, and living like everybody else.

Inspect the gap

You've got to watch yourself between Sundays. Watch yourself between when you read your Bible in the morning and when you say your prayer as you fall asleep at night.

I visited a church one time. Just once. It was the last time I went there. People were honking at each other in the parking lot. "Get out of my way!" But they had totally forgotten what they had just done: worshiping God, loving the brethren. They got into their cars and went right back to who they were.

Pay attention to who you are between Sundays, between "Thank You, Lord, for a new day" and going to bed. It's in that gap that life happens, and you can fall in. You can fall away.

Ask God to rescue you from you

God did hear Israel's groaning, and God did rescue them. But they went right back to who they were before. Look at the end of Judges 2:19:

They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

They asked God to save them from their enemies. They never asked Him to save them from their stubbornness.

Why don't we make that a matter of prayer? Not "Lord, rescue me from my problems," but "Lord, rescue me from myself and my sin." Stop asking, "Lord, help me be wealthy. Lord, help me be healthy." Why not, "God, will You help me be holy? Will You help me be faithful? Will You help me be willing?" Willing is the opposite of stubborn.

Show and tell

It isn't enough to just tell the next generation the stories. We have to show them. That's why I tell my own story. I was a second-generation Christian. My dad was a pastor. There's a lot of nonsense that comes with being a PK, which we say stands for "picked-on kid." It's even worse if you're an MK, a missionary kid. Or a DK, a deacon's kid. Woo.

But God can rescue second-generation Christians. Third-generation too. The miracles didn't stop with the Red Sea and Jericho. God's got stuff to do in your heart and in your life.

Coming home

Maybe you were raised to know God, but all the miraculous things happened to somebody else, and you're at risk of falling away. Come home. Not because your parents did it right, and not because other Christians didn't do it wrong, but because God cares about you and wants to do life with you. He doesn't want to be an accessory.

The Bible says, "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." God does rescue. He does heal. He does bless. He just doesn't do it for show.

This week, mind the gap.