When I fly, I do nothing but sit for hours and hours and yet I am exhausted when I finally arrive. How does that happen?
My friend, Tracy, and I discussed this phenomenon and described the feeling of being dehydrated, dry, sore, and tired after flying. We decided that it was akin to having chapped lips, except after flying we exhibited a full-body chap. Throughout our discussion, the term was shortened to “chappy”. Perhaps you have felt this way before. Since my return last airplane flight, I haven’t felt physically chappy, but I have felt so spiritually. For some reason it just doesn’t feel like Christmas to me yet. Perhaps it is a combination of the warm weather, my busy work schedule, and the fact that I have been done Christmas shopping for some time now, but I just don’t feel as excited for Christmas as I usually do. I remembered a lecture given by one of my professors in which he said one of our major jobs as Believers in Jesus was to keep the familiar from becoming common. In other words, we cannot read the Bible as if it is just another book because it is not! God is always at work and I forget that when I read the Bible without a sense of awe at His work. I sometimes fall into the trap of reading the Christmas story as old news, which greatly contributes to the chappiness of my heart. I leave you with two passages. The first is the Biblical cure for spiritual chappiness.
“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.”
Psalm 63: 1-4
And the second is my prescription to keep the familiar from becoming too common. May we never be complacent that Christ came to earth as a man to seek the lost. But continually be in amazement of the great lengths he went through to save his own. Read the following slowly and it just could astound you!
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-5 & 14