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Key Bible Verse: Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and affections (Psalm 26:2). Bonus Reading: Psalm 139:1-6,23-24

Like an out-of-round tire on an accelerating car, signs of an imbalanced life start out as a slow thump-thump-thump. The truly important, eternal part of our lives—prayer, the spiritual disciplines—is usually the first to be overlooked, and ignoring the thump seems to bring no immediate consequence. But as the pace picks up, the thump becomes louder, perhaps as the nagging complaints of loved ones and colleagues. Turning up the car radio drowns it out, but soon the steering gear is shaking. Your whole system's out of whack, ready for a breakdown. Maybe you should have run the diagnostics first:

• Is relating to God a duty or delight?
• Is your spouse complaining of loneliness?
• Are you serving and enjoying fellowship in your church?
• Do you make time to rest and enjoy leisure pursuits?
• Have you isolated yourself from any deep, honest relationships?
• Have you become more patient, kind, compassionate, or humble over the past year?
• Will anything you're doing earn eternal commendation? Or are you stuck on the hamster wheel of accumulating possessions and awards that will burn up at the end?

—Carolyn McCulley in Life@Work

My Response: Which diagnostic alerts me to a need for prayerful, prompt correction?

Thought to Apply: When [work] is carried to the extent of undermining life or unduly absorbing it, work is not praiseworthy but blameworthy.—RALPH TURNBULL (writer)

Adapted from Life@Work (11-12/00) by permission.

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Lord, I realize that Satan would love to switch me off on some siding. Please keep me on the mainline of Your will for me.

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