Devotion - Monday, April 18

If someone were to ask you, "What week is this?" you are likely to respond, "Next to the last week of classes." This is crunch time. This is the week when so many projects are due and the last round of exams are given. The Orchestra Concert last night was but one of the events this week which drew so many away from events planned at the Church. During these next six days, there will be other choices made - "Do I devote myself to my studies or do I come to Church?"

The parents and alums reading this, might add their own agendas. It is that time of the year when yard work and gardens fill our afternoons and early evenings. Having just past "tax day," there are accounting and bookkeeping tasks which were set aside that need to be picked back up.

There is another notation for this week - the one which unites those who are on the email list of a Christian minister. It is Holy Week. I know that you know this, and probably thought it as you read the opening two paragraphs. We don't "forget" that it is Holy Week, but all those other agendas make it difficult for us to make Holy Week our top priority. There are so many other calendars operating in our lives that we are torn to observe the religious one.

After all, God is forgiving, right? God will understand. Our professors have deadlines. (Professors reading this - we understand that you have academic committees and without your dedication to academic standards the Universities accreditation would disappear - so we don't blame you for those deadlines.) There are greater (immediate) consequences to failing to honor the calendar imposed by our work or our studies than to allow the Liturgical Calendar to slip.

It is not as simple as asking, "Which is more important?" They are all important. The thought with which I would leave you this morning is to remember that they are all important. Do your work. Complete your projects. But also turn your attention to the events which make this week "Holy," and give attention to the acts of God which set us free and bring us salvation.

You face a busy week. God's message, this week and every week, is a desire to take as much of that burden off you as He can. God's message, this week and every week, is an invitation to avoid loosing yourself in the immediate while forsaking that which is eternal.

It is the next to the last week of classes. It is Holy Week. Somewhere, somehow, allow those two to come into harmony with one another.