By Todd Barrier

Buffering. It never fails. In this age of streaming, buffering gets me every time. In the biggest moment of a show you are streaming, the big moment you’ve been waiting for and boom…. the circle of death begins to spin with those hated words, buffering. There’s nothing we can do about it until the internet decides to cooperate again. Isn’t this sort of what happens in our life with Christ? Those big moments come, the moments we’ve been warned about and thought about. A decision has to be made, it’s a worldly choice or a Godly choice. Then it happens, spiritual buffering. In that moment, the worldly alternative has decided to buffer our spiritual armor. We’ve decided to go the easy route and please our flesh or to please those around us. Afterall we can reboot back to spirituality later. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. We get so far from God because of those moments that our connection is permanently lost. How do we avoid this spiritual buffering? God has an answer. He basically tells us it’s what we focus on is what we really hold dear. Our decisions in those moments tell us a lot about the quality of our connection to Him. Col. 3:2-5 says “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

God says to set your mind on Him not on the world. Then when these moments come, we will choose Him … no more spiritual buffering! Where is your connection, with God or the world?