Getting Serious

I recently happened to hear a recording of a choir singing one of Charles Wesley's hymns.

I heard the words and I heard the music, but I missed the Spirit of God in the interpretation.
The thought flashed through my mind, "What must it have been to be present at the moment when that hymn was sung the best it was ever sung on earth?"

What must it have been when the atmosphere was pregnant with the Presence of God
- when the words captivated the spirit of those present,
- when the singers forgot everything earthly, 
- when beyond trials and travails they lifted their voice to God alone?

What to live for a moment beyond time and space and touch Eternity?

There must have been a glory in that place, a touch of the measurelessness of God's world.

There was a time when I used to ride my bike to school … seven miles through winding road, uphill and downhill, and through the town.
Not liking school I would set off late, and then after school try to get away home as fast as possible.
My aim on those rides was to set a new best time every time I rode, and this meant forgetting yesterday's ride, ignoring all around, and concentrating on pushing the limits day after day.

I don't know the worth of those morning and evening rides, but my mind jumps to the spiritual realm.
Are the things we declare important, really important to us?
Should there not be a similar:
"forgetting those things which are behind, 
and reaching forth to those things which are before"?(Phil. 3.13)

Should there not be an awareness,
a reaching past changeable things to the Unchangeable,
a reaching from the things of time to Things Eternal, 
a going beyond the earthly to the Heavenly?

Should there not be an intensity, a fleeing from the area of our comfortable existence amidst earthly things to the places where God Himself is both our Way and our Destiny?

John (1.11) says, "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not," - a terrible indictment.
As He comes day by day to our lives, the only thing which is ours to give Him is an intensity of response.

As we come into a New Year, 
everyday is a world on its own, 
and the present day is all we have.

Can we go beyond our obstacles today?
Can we go beyond our apathy today?

The day is ours, for us to seek with all our strength that He might fill it.