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What to Do When You’ve Been Coasting Spiritually · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Speak: By any measure anybody was using, in 1737, John Wesley
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  was the most serious Christian in England. At Oxford, he led a
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  group that other students mocked as the Holy Club. The members
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  held each other to daily Bible study and prayer. They fasted
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  twice a week and visited the prisons. Wesley was ordained and
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  elected a fellow of Lincoln College. In 1735, he crossed the
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  Atlantic to preach in the new colony of Georgia. He came home
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  convinced the thing had accomplished nothing. In his
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  journal, he wrote one line that has followed him for almost 300
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  years. I went to America to convert the Indians, but oh, who
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  shall convert me? The truth was, Wesley had done every single
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  thing right and nothing happened in him. We'll come back to what
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  broke that open. But first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger.
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  There was a stretch in my ministry when about the only
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  reason I opened my Bible was to find something to preach. I'd
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  read a passage, and the first question in my head was whether
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  it would work on Sunday. I knew better. I've told other men not
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  to do that. I read that way anyway for a while. I got
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  sermons out of it, and I came up empty in myself. Every long-term
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  Christian has stretches of what we may call coasting. And on the
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  outside, everything seems okay. You're still going to church.
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  You're still praying before meals. Nothing's falling apart,
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  and you're not in some obvious sin. But if you took an
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  inventory, nothing has grown in a while. The devotional time
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  slipped at some point and never came back. The hunger to know
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  God more is not there like it used to be. Coasting doesn't
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  always look obvious from the outside, which is why nobody
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  sounds the alarm, including you. There's a short book near the
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  end of the Old Testament that handles this, I believe. It's in
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  Haggai 1, verses 5 and 6. This is what the Lord of Heaven's
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  armies says. Look at what's happening to you. You have
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  planted much, but harvest little. You eat, but are not satisfied.
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  You drink, but are still thirsty. You put on clothes, but cannot
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  keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them
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  in pockets filled with holes. Here's the situation. God's
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  people had come back from exile and started rebuilding the
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  temple. Then the work stopped, and 16 years went by. Meanwhile,
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  they finished out their own houses. Verse 4 is pretty blunt,
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  asking why they're living in paneled houses while God's house
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  lies in ruins. In the older translations, verse 5 reads,
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  consider your ways. The Hebrew is stronger than it sounds in
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  English. It says, set your heart upon your ways, and the word for
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  ways is roads. Set your heart on the you've been traveling. Look
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  at where your feet have been taking you. Then look at how God
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  makes his case, because this is a that fits a Christian
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  Christian. He never asked them how they feel about God. He
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  points to their output and tells them to read it. Planted much,
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  harvested little, eating without getting satisfied, wages going
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  into a pocket with holes in it. God hands them a list of results
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  and lets the results speak for themselves. That's a different
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  test than the one most of us run. We check our feelings about God
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  and conclude that nothing's wrong, because the feelings
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  aren't terrible. We still love God. Haggai says count the
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  harvest instead. And look at where the trouble came from.
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  Verse 9 says it. "They were busy building their own fine houses,
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  and all that effort went somewhere. Coasting in one part
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  of your life almost always means the energy got spent in another
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  part. And most people can tell you where if they stop and
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  look." Then comes God's instruction in verse 8. And it's
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  one thing: "Go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild
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  my house." He didn't ask for a feeling or a new attitude. He
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  tells them to go get wood. Look at what happened. After they
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  obeyed, verse 14 says, "The Lord stirred up their spirit. The
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  hunger came back on the far side of the obedience. They didn't
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  wait to feel like building. They built. And God supplied the
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  stirring." So start with the inventory. What has grown in the
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  last year? Then pick one thing and do it this week. Something
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  small enough that you'll still be doing it in a month. One
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  prayer, or two minutes in the Gospel of Mark before you look
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  at your phone. One prayer at the kitchen table that isn't about a
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  crisis or just praying for a meal. In fact, on May 24, 1738,
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  Wesley went to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. His
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  own journal records how he went. He says he went very unwillingly.
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  Somebody there was reading aloud from Luther's preface to the
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  Book of Romans. That's where it happened. He wrote that his
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  heart was strangely warmed and that he felt he did trust in
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  Christ alone for his salvation. "The man who had fasted and
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  crossed an ocean to preach finally had the thing all of it
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  had been pointing at." Notice what he was doing when it came
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  to him? He was going to one more meeting he didn't feel like
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  attending. It was a small step, but he took it anyway, and God
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  met him there. Wesley had a phrase for the years before that
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  night. He called it a fair summer religion. Everything in
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  good order and no weather in it yet. It's not today's challenge.
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  Take ten minutes tonight and do what Haggai said. Consider your
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  ways. Write down what has grown and what hasn't in the past year
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  and be honest with yourself about it. If the answer's
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  nothing, then write nothing. Then look at where your effort
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  went instead because it went somewhere. Write down the house
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  you've been paneling and then pick one practice you can think
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  of and start it tomorrow. Don't wait until you want
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  ask them how they felt about you first. Thank you that you
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  stirred up their spirit after they picked up that first piece
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  of timber. For everybody listening who's been coasting
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  and knows it, give them the honesty to look and the grit to
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  start one small thing. Meet them in the way you met Wesley in a
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  room he almost skipped. In Jesus' name, Amen. If you need
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  prayer today, I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a
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  voicemail at
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  DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com/Voicemail . I listen to every single one
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  and it would be an honor to bring your name before the Lord.
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  Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.
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  Remember, God stirred them up after they started building.
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  Pick up one piece of timber this week. Come back next time for
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  more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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  Until then, God bless and have a great day.