My Heart Wasn't In It

Yesterday morning I had a tough choice to make. Everyone in the family slept in, and by the time I came into the kitchen for breakfast I saw that it was 9:30 and no one had started getting ready for church. There was no way we could make the 10:30 service in time. We were either going to have to miss church or go to the noon service. But if we went to the noon service we'd miss the first quarter of the Cincinnati Bengals game.

Hmm. God or the Bengals? It was a tough choice...

In the end, though, we ended up at church. I told myself that in 6 months I wouldn't care anything about the game, but I WOULD care about the state of my soul.

Still, I don't think my heart was really in the service.

I got the first indication that was the case during the praise and worship music. The second song that was sung was "Everlasting God." The song includes lyrics that describe God as "the Defender of the weak." I heard that lyric and thought, "'Defender of the Week?' No contest! That would be cornerback Jonathan Joseph, who intercepted the Cleveland Browns down on the goal line!" (By the way, he did the same thing yesterday to the Ravens!)

I should have known at that moment that I was going to have trouble focusing. Later, during the sermon, the pastor was talking about people who aggressively evangelize and he asked, "Who ARE these people?" I had to restrain myself from shouting back, "Who Dey!"

As the pastor was wrapping up his sermon, I glanced over at another person in the same row that I was in. I saw her watch and that it was two minutes to one, and I thought to myself, "You know, if I left now and acted like I really needed to use the bathroom, I could scoot out the front door of the church and into the car and listen to the game on the radio until everyone comes out!"

But I didn't. I stayed through the whole service, but my heart wasn't in it at all.

Oh well. At least everyone else in the family hopefully got something out of church yesterday.

Who Dey!