Review: What Habits Cause You to Drift Away from a Close Relationship with God?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2013
Do you get distracted from your focus on God? What causes you to move away from Him and focus on the world around you, or on yourself? How do you get back to a close relationship with the Lord? The author, Pauline Creeden, offers a short study course, in the form of a devotional for 40 days, to guide the reader through the journey back to His loving Presence. The 40 days are significant because moving away from God is often due to bad habits. So to move closer to Him, we need to re-establish good habits in place of the bad ones.Ms. Creeden explains in the beginning that this set of devotions began as her own personal journey. Writing from her heart, she dug down deep to find the habits that needed to be rooted out, and added her thoughts about them as she meditated on God's Word. A few she writes about are fear, loss of control, worry, stubbornness, substituting other things for the natural craving we have for God, pride, living by sight, and stress.How can we remove so much that is distracting us? She pens her thoughts: pray to break the habit of drifting away; be patient, progress will seem slow; apply the armor of God; give God control; understand the threshing process; step out in faith; choose whom we serve...and more. And finally, she gives us concrete things for us to do and turn to: give thanks; ask God what He wants us to do for Him; trust God to open doors that seem to be closed; take everything to God in prayer; we are called to teach; seek His kingdom first; His grace is enough...and so much more.There is a pattern many of us children of God seem to get caught up in. Using the author's metaphor, we drift away, row back to shore, drift away, and row back to shore again. Over and over, we repeat this rhythm. One of my first thoughts in reading this devotional was how true this was for me. Then I thought how it might help to journal the process, find the specific distractions unique to me and pinpoint them, pray about them and pray through them. Perhaps if we do this enough, we will start to recognize when we're drifting and catch it before we get out too far. The author warns us drifting will happen. She encourages us not to look back, but to keep pressing on. Three things stuck in my mind that I think will help us in our journeys: be a praise warrior; never stop learning--be teachable; and always seek His kingdom first. Perhaps these short devotional thoughts will help your journey as well.A complimentary review copy was provided to me by the author through Read for Review, a review service for AtlWit Press. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.