When we start something new and are all excited about it, we think about it day and night. We talk to others about it and we want to work on it all the time. If it is someone we just met, we may want to be them all the time and we enjoy their company. If it is a project we are working on, a new school, job or a hobby, we want to absorb as much as we can and do our very best.

However, after a while, we become a little less excited about things. We tend to look for other ways to make us happy. This can happen in relationships, in our work, exercising or in just about anything we do. We need to be careful that the important things in our lives maintain a longer shelf life than those things that we just try out to see if they will be interesting or not.

When we commit to a relationship, we are responsible to the other person. We are to work at making things interesting and not letting things get into a rut. We can’t allow time to go by without sharing or doing things for them because the relationship will tend to get stale. If we are not careful, the relationship goes bad. Sometimes we just decide to throw it out and start all over again.

When we work on a project, we are excited about what we can contribute at first. However, we soon find that the work continues but the motivation and the newness wear off. We find that we are making excuses not to hold up to our end of the responsibilities. The work becomes stale. The people involved become annoying. The end result is no longer important and the outcome could result in something less than first sought out because we have lost the desire to help.

Other routine things we do such as reading God’s word, going to church and praying may feel as if we are going through the motions rather than getting excited about God. Our shelf life with God is eternal. When we commit to Him, we are committing to a life of work for Him by doing for others. We have to be careful not to allow things to get mundane or boring.

Revelation 3:15-16 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!”

Our greatest fear should be that we don’t become lukewarm. Lukewarm is like becoming stale. It is like losing our freshness and our excitement about God and the things in our lives. When we become like this, we don’t really care about anyone. We forget what is important in life and that we are here to serve God and to help others. We need to stay focused on God so He can help us stay motivated in all areas of our lives.

God is with us and can create excitement in all that we do so that no task is the same and everything is new. When we allow anything in our lives to become stale or to go bad, that is the devil trying to get us off track. That is the devil saying we need to quit. That is the devil wanting us to move on and not finish what we started. That is when we need to be sure we are holding on to Jesus because the devil is getting scared and, if we press on, we can really make a difference.

We need to remember our shelf life is eternal. We are better than the food we keep in our kitchens. We can’t grow stale or go bad. We need to keep our minds and hearts in line with what God wants us to do. We need to renew ourselves daily so God can remove the bad and the boring and keep everything fresh in our lives. If we begin to feel like things are ho hum and dull, we need to quickly return to God through prayer and Bible reading so he can keep us alive in Him and doing His will.

Author's Bio: 

Frances Lucas has lived in Birmingham, Alabama for over 40 years. She is a working mother with three children and has progressively improved her life through mistakes, persistence and a sense of humor. Her passion in life surfaced after a major setback in life which proves good things can come from bad experiences. Frances coaches in career and personal improvement, facilitates self-improvement classes and writes articles.

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