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Apr 06, 2024 06:00am

Shallow

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Every few years our supermarket rearranges the store. I am a list-making, go-in-the-same-order kind of shopper. I have a grocery shopping routine. When the store gets rearranged and moved around every few years, it throws me off. Not familiar with where to find the items on my list, I look up and down every aisle, searching for what I need. I have to pause to look at the signs hanging overhead that tell you what is on that aisle. It was a shopping day like this when I searched for taco seasoning, and frustration set in when I could not find it. I stopped to “look at the overhead sign” and realized my mind was scanning so quickly I couldn’t actually process what I was reading. I was rushing down the aisles, scanning shelves and signs, and annoyed I could not find what I was searching for. My rushing kept the thing I was searching for hidden from my sight. It was nearby. It was available. But my glancing pace prevented me from finding it. Once I slowed down to read the signs, I found the roadmap I sought. I found the taco seasoning. Taco Tuesday was saved! But it took me going slower to find what I was looking for.

A mile wide and an inch deep. This is the pace of life we are living. Our capacity to process is thinned away daily as we scan our way through our days. Glancing at incessant amounts of information trains the mind to go fast. I can see the rotten fruit of this in my prayer life, in how I casually list requests before God, struggling to go deep in prayer. Tissue paper-thin prayers have become the default, and I wonder why things feel out of whack in my life.

Our quick pace of life has me pondering how to slow down to retrain my mind and recover a deeper relationship with God. When I read Scripture, I like to read a passage multiple times. Seven times is my goal for deep understanding. I read smaller sections of Scripture and read them again and again and again. In this way, my reading goes deeper. I don’t read every passage seven times every time, but more often than not, it is a fantastic way to gain depth in studying the Word.

Deepening my time in prayer and the Word are two things I am doing right now. I’m doing it by reading smaller portions of the Bible and reading the passage multiple times. And the most remarkable thing is happening- I am finding depths filled with thirst-quenching life! The same goes for prayer. I’m taking the time to go slowly through my prayer list. As I read Scripture, I pray passages over my family and friends. In keeping a slower pace, the spiritual life deepens.

When we notice a shallow quality in our lives, it is an excellent time to pause and evaluate if we have fallen into the habit of only glancing at God. This common pitfall happens quietly. When depth is missing, it is time to take inventory of the spiritual disciplines of our prayer life and time in the Word. Shallow roots produce shallow fruit. Shallow living does not create the abundant life in Christ our hearts desire. Shallow living produces lives that are easily blown and tossed about.

Swayed easily by life’s ebb and flow

Has no substance

Anchorless

Leaves you feeling vulnerable

Leaves you exposed to the enemy

Only produces chaff

Will not produce abundant life

Scripture encourages us to return today with prayer and repentance. Evaluate the quality of your time in prayer and the Word. If shallow is the Word you would use to describe these two key spiritual disciplines of the faith, going deeper is your top priority this week. Retraining our minds to sit unhurried with the Lord, is possible to recover. Don’t believe the lie that you are too far gone. Believe that God is ready and waiting for deeper communion with you today.