After a long week, the weekend is upon us. What are you going to do? Depending on the stage in your life, you might be working long hours at a restaurant because weekend shifts always earn you more money. Maybe you are a student and the weekend offers you more time to complete your homework. Or, you have kids who are involved in sports or music and you are running around getting everyone to the respective obligations. Needless to say, we are a busy society even on our weekends.

No longer are the days when we had only one option of a football game to attend on Friday night and no other obligations on Saturday. Used to be, you were able to get most errands and tasks around the house accomplished on Saturdays so you could truly have a Sabbath on Sunday and enjoy your time with God at church. Now, we fill up our Saturdays as much as any other working day of the week. This then leaves Sundays. 

As a parent of three children, I’ve begun to slip into the habit of allowing work to take up my Sunday afternoons. Therefore, I have a harder time relaxing on Sunday mornings when it’s time to worship. Why? Church has become another to-do on my list that I sometimes dread and I just want the demands of life to slow down.

If I live for God during the week and am following the plans He has for my life, though, why do I, or better asked, how could I, dread going to church?

Here’s what I’ve found for me:

1. I make church about me. It’s about my time and what I intend to get out of the Sunday School lesson or the service. If I don’t feel God spoke to me, I’ve wasted my time and just went through the routine.
2. I give God my leftovers. I might say I’m living my life for God, but usually I’m not giving Him my quality time. I think we’ve all been there before: the five minutes before bed when we pray and apologize for the lack of quality time, the frantic prayers as we are about to lose our cool because we are running out of time in the day, or the cries for help when we can’t take life and/or our circumstances.
3. I forget the purpose of church. Church is about remembering we are all in this together.

The most important thing we need to realize is that God created us for relationship; with Him and with others. We can’t go at this thing of life alone. Going alone is what #1 and #2 above involved.

Are you feeling lonely and isolated? It’s time to go to church. Feeling tired of life and uninspired? It’s time to go to church. Let’s remember the purpose of church and the purpose of coming together with a common goal: glorifying the God who created us in the first place.

Today is the time to decide for yourself whom you will serve: God or _______ .

It’s time to go to church.

© 2015 Susan M. Sims