"Personal Time"
by Bryan Woods
January 23, 2010
In the past, I faithfully updated this website ever Saturday morning. I would get up early, make coffee and sit on the love seat and update the website in the quite of my home while
everyone else slept. I truly enjoyed the quiet time alone and actually looked forward to those Saturday mornings.
However, in the past few months I have not been very faithful. Until today, I haven't update the website since the week before Christmas, I believe. In the past six months, I've only
updated every two weeks (or so...). It seems that I've been a little discouraged.
Every month I would review my site hits (to see how many times the site had been visited) and would get more and more discouraged because of the lack of number of hits I was
receiving.
It really takes a lot of time to update the site and for what? Nobody looks at it anyway. It appeared that the only person viewing the site was my oldest daughter. Maybe one or two other
visits that were probably accidental visits.
Anyway... the following week I got up and started to update the website and as I opened my laptop, I thought to myself "Why bother". I closed the laptop and read the paper instead.
Over the next few months I repeated the process with increasing delays in updates as the months went by.
For two years now I haven't played in any band and have barely picked up a guitar. I'm no longer teaching bible studies and don't participate in the church at all. Outside of daily
reading of my bible, a few fellowships and prayer, I don't have any input into any ministries. This all came about a couple of years back when we built our most recent home.
The new house was more than an hour from our church and because of our involvement with the church on so many levels, we decided to find a new church closer to home. This was
an extremely hard decision to make. We loved the people of our church and I considered the pastor a personal friend as much as my pastor. I was in the band and occasionally taught
the adult bible study. Liz was involved in the Children's Ministry as a fill in and like most churches...very few of the same persons perform most all of the duties, and we were burned out.
After about a year of driving an almost an hour each direction, twice a day on Sundays, we decided to look for a closer place to worship.
We found an awesome place at Hulen Street Baptist Church. The ministry was good and true and the music was awesome. For the first time in a long time I truly worshiped.
For years, one of the most rewarding things of playing in the band at church was watching people in the congregation worship from up on stage. To witness the Spirit of God on a
persons face with their hands lifted up to Heaven was one of the greatest things I've ever experienced. It was almost like a drug.
But now all of a sudden, I was experiencing what I had witnessed for all of these years. It was hard to watch others up on stage and not be able to be a part of it, but the experience of
entering in to the worship was too rewarding.
After a year of participating as no more that a silent worshiping member of the body at Hulen Street. I felt that I needed to do more, but lacked the time. My job was requiring more and
more of my time and it seemed that I had less and less time with Liz (my wife). We're best friends and spend all of our free time together, but that time was becoming less and less.
I thought that if I started a website that maybe I could provide something that would somehow glorify the Lord. I found that it only took more of that Personal Time that I lacked and
cherished so, but I've always believed that if you sacrificed your cherished time to the Lord, He would reward you. And usually He rewards you with the things you cherish.
So I sent out email's to everyone I know and told them about the website. I asked for no money and tried to offer information and links to good, clean and helpful websites. I told
strangers, coworkers and family members, but few seem to view and I grew increasingly frustrated.
I shared my frustration with my wife Liz and as I previously mentioned "It really takes a lot of time to update the site and for what? Nobody looks at it anyway. It appeared that the only
person viewing the site was my oldest daughter. Maybe one or two other visits that were probably accidental visits". I told her that "I don't know why the Lord had me make a website.
Maybe it wasn't Him at all. Maybe it was just something "I" wanted to do"...and in true form she told me to "Quit Whining!" and informed me that maybe the Lord meant it for just one
person and maybe that person was my oldest daughter. She also said that if people did visit the site and I wasn't updating regularly they probably wouldn't visit again if every previous
time the site was the same.
She thinks she's soooo smart. I hate when she speaks with Godly wisdom.
So here I am. It's early Saturday morning. I'm having coffee and updating my website, confessing my failings to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I'll quit whining now and do my best to
update this website every week for that one person, whoever it may be.
In todays society here in America, "Personal Time" is probably the most valuable thing the we Americans treasure. It's become a true commodity. But what greater thing can we sacrifice
to our Lord. He asks for so very little of us, yet requires all of us.
I apologize to my God and to any who visit the website and I intend to do better. Thanks for you patience and God Bless us all.
Website: www.cic-thesource.com Email: bryan@cic-thesource.com
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