Welcome, friend, to a moment you’ve captured out of your busy day. Don’t feel guilty about it. Instead, take a deep breath. Clear your mind of all those things you think you should be doing right now.
What is it that’s trending in your life?
Take time for reflection . . .
Is it the routine of a certain life-stage—school, career, family? Or maybe you’re caught up in what’s culturally popular.
Is it joyful . . . or heart-wrenching?
Does it feel more like labor or leisure?
Is it faith-stretching . . . faith-building . . . faith-draining . . . or are you straining to eke out any semblance of faith?
Trends can cycle—and not all for the better! Like when a certain something is thrust upon you, grabs your focus, drains your energy, dominates your time . . . and it’s all you can do to keep up.
We pass through many stages, phases, and seasons—and something is always trending. Some aspect of life takes center stage and fills your days, doesn’t it? It may even be something more demanding than entertaining (unlike most trendy trends).
In those shifting trends, however, there can be a constant. Actually, there should be a constant for sanity sake.
There is a response to fit whatever is trending now in your life.
live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord
(1 Cor 7:35b).
Even though Paul was responding to the Corinthian’s question regarding marital status, I believe this exhortation can be applied beyond—to any status in life.
Pause long enough to envision what that would look like in various forms.
What would it look like right where you’re at?
In the midst of whatever activities consume your time and attention, how might you “live in a right way”?
How can you do what you’re doing in “undivided devotion to the Lord”? You can set a new trend—purposefully.
Those questions aren’t trending now. But your response to them will impact whatever in your life is . . . possibly for all eternity.
So, take a moment longer. Allow the Word of God to renew your mind. So that when you get back to it, there’s a new twist to your trend — a devotional twist.