Today is semiannual physical check up day at our house. About a week ago Rosemary and I went to a lab and had blood drawn and gave fluid samples. Today we meet with our internist. We get poked and weighed and evaluated. We end up with a bunch of numbers: weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, etc. Based on these numbers we get an idea of how we are doing physically. Based on these numbers perhaps we make some adjustments: change a medication, alter a diet, make an appointment with a specialist.
I like check up day, after the checkup. There is normally a since of “made it” and “that wasn’t too bad.” Normally there isn’t horrible news. If there are things out of line, usually we can fix them with a bit of adjustment. The biggest relief comes from knowing it’s over. Rose and I usually celebrate by going to lunch and making wild promises to do much better over the next six months.
As important as our spiritual lives are, you would think we would do spiritual check ups at least as often as we do physical ones. I don’t. I go forward with only the vaguest idea of how I am doing spiritually. Unless a major test is thrown in my path, I just seem to put one foot in front of the other.
One of the reasons for this is that a spiritual check up is harder to do. There is no third person to evaluate your numbers and tell you how you are doing. Worse, there just aren’t very many numbers. It’s very difficult to put objective numbers on the state of our spiritual health. If we could do that, perhaps we would be more prone to frequent evaluation.
For the Christian, it’s all about relationship: our relationship with God and our neighbor. How do you evaluate relationship? Are there elements that we can attach numbers to that would make the process more objective? Let’s try.
Time together. A relationship isn’t very healthy if you don’t spend much time together. How much time are you spending with God? There may be no objective standards as to how many hours a day is healthy, but at least we can compare time spent with other activities in our lives and with the time spent by Christians whose walks we admire. We can compare our time spent with God with our time spent in other “pursuits” : eating, playing, working, watching television. The great thing about time with God is that we can spend time with Him WHILE we are doing something else. Can we agree that we can all do better in practicing the presence of God?
Priorities: Perhaps the best way to gauge a relationship is by comparing how we rate it against other things in our lives. How important is our relationship with God? Do we recognize a connection between the quality of our relationship with Him and the joy and quality of our lives? We are taught to “See first the Kingdom of God.” If we are doing that, our spiritual health is probably great. It’s important to honestly gauge where our heads are at. Consider how we spend our days. Are we putting the things of God first and trusting, that will cause the other things we have to do to fall in line?
Affection: You can tell how strong a relationship is by how affectionate the parties are with each other. We all smile at the older married couple that still holds hands and exchanges affectionate glances. Do we smile when we think of God? Are our hearts ever very far from His?
Maybe it’s time for a spiritual check up. Do one and be blessed.
Nick
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