Have you ever had a moment when thoughts flitted out of the thinking path of your brain and evaporated into the great unknown of space? Or, walking across the room intent on doing a specific action you forget where you're headed or what you're suppose to do when you get there? This is the essence of a senior moment for me. It's frustrating and comical at the same time. How can I just lose a thought? I'm happy when it only takes a moment of reflection before I remember and I can continue in fulfilling my goal.
What does frustrate and confound me is when this kind of a thing seeps into my Christian walk.
With all the lessons I've learned over the years, I should have Christianity down to a fine art by now. I would think that actions lacking any sign of a Christ-like love would be obsolete. Right? "Senior moments" of forgetting what I've learned from God shouldn't exist. I should flawlessly be exhibiting Christ's love all the time. But that's not what happens to me. There have been times when someone
approaches me the wrong way, or a vehicle passes within inches of my car and I find myself amazed how quickly rude intonations pepper words proceeding out of
my mouth. Comments spill forth before I realize it and I'm left
wondering where the words came from in the first place. Hello, where is
the love of Christ
in this? It's a terrible time to have a senior moment.
And then there are the times I can be going along seamlessly and all of sudden I find myself bouncing off ill spoken words directed at me. Followed by hours struggling to embrace the fact that I'm God's precious daughter and that I am loved. Why the struggle? The words should slide off my back and find no foothold in my mind or spirit. Oh bother, another senior moment.
These are the gut reactions that bear witness to the fact that my inner being is still in need of a good Christian clean-up. How can this be? Years of studying and reading the Bible should be manifested in my behaviors. Why do the applications of these lessons seem to vanish in one moment of reacting to the world or the actions of someone who managed to hit my weak spot? But, as I've thought on the humorous and non-humorous side of this I've discovered a couple of things.
I am no different than some of the people I read about in the Bible. I take some comfort from this. Let's look at Moses for instance. Did you realize that he was in his late seventies when he went to Egypt to rescue the Israelites? And after witnessing God's miracles one right after another, he did a no-no. (Look at Deuteronomy 34; Numbers 20) The way I understand it, as a long-time believer in God, Moses allowed his anger to affect his actions when he struck the rock rather than speaking to it. So, when I struggle with my outbursts, it is not something new to God. He knows people who were stronger in their faith and still failed.
When I fail to speak lovingly or without condemnation in my voice I realize that my Christian walk is an ongoing process. Even after years of being in the Word, I still have room for improvement. I will never be as good as God. I will always need His forgiveness and His grace. That's the way it's suppose to be.
What I can do is practice taking several deep breaths and silently calling on Jesus to guide my words. Slow to speak, remember? (James 1:19) I am blessed that I serve a God who is patient with His flock. He knows I'm trying and that each day I improve so that my senior moments as farther and fewer between.
