The Definition of Insanity

Albert Einstein has been credited with giving the world its most memorable definition of insanity. Although Einstein probably didn't come up with the definition, the definition is no less memorable. The over-used cliche is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I can definitely relate to this and consider my self to be certifiable at this point. Last week was hay making time for many in our area due to the warm and dry weather. While baling hay for the first time this season, I worked in our largest field first. As I finished bale after bale I noticed I wasn't getting bales to be tied tightly like they should be. Now our baler is older than I am, which means you have to manually move an arm on the baler to wrap the string around the bale while it is in the baler. All this means is that there are less mechanical issues when wrapping a bale and problems are more likely to be a user problem. As you can guess the user, yours truly, was the problem with the bales being loose. I went through the same process time after time trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with no luck. Finally towards the end of the day I figured out that I wasn't lowering the throttle enough to wrap the bale tightly. After a few hours of being the definition of insanity, I finally figured out what was wrong.

When it comes to our spiritual life, we can easily find ourselves being the definition of insanity. We do things the same way, over and over and over again, while expecting completely different results. Think about some of these scenarios. We go weeks, months or even years without putting time into our relationship with God and then expect Him to speak to us at a moments notice or in a time of distress. We neglect our time reading the Bible, picking it up only to carry it to church, and then wonder why God's Word hasn't changed us and why we don't live more like Christ. We don't think a thing about God Monday through Saturday, and expect God to "Wow" us in worship on Sunday morning. These are just a few examples of how, in our spiritual life, we do the same thing over and over again, week after week, year after year, and expect God to do something different. Unless we're willing to change the way we approach our spiritual life and our relationship with God, we shouldn't expect different results. We shouldn't expect God to do something in our lives unless we're willing to step away from the old way of doing things that never resulted in a closeness to Him in the first place.

Take a deep look at your spiritual life and examine those areas of your life that need to change so you can get a different result. If that means getting serious about your Bible reading or prayer time, then get serious about it. If it means using Sunday worship as a pep rally for the week ahead or an after party time of celebration for the week behind you, then do so. Don't be satisfied with the status quo when the status quo didn't accomplish anything to begin with. Make the changes necessary to keep yourself from being the definition of insanity.


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