blogs and fire

My sister and I were talking about blogs this last weekend. She started her blog last fall and that was part of the reason why I started this blog. She mentioned that most blogs "die" very soon after they are created. So I did some research and found out that 60 - 80% of blogs are abandoned within a month after their creation and that 66% of all blogs are abandoned. Another interesting fact I found was that the oldest running blog, Scripting News by Dave Winer, was created in 1997.

Why do I bring this up? Because I think bloggers and their blogs is an analogy for Christians and their relationship with Christ. How many times have you talked with someone who has just become a Christian and they are on fire for God. They are so enthusiastic about everything, sharing it with others, bible studys, going to church, having quiet times with God, you name it, they are right there with as much energy as a Labrador retriever puppy when he (or she) meets new people. Then maybe school becomes super stressful and their family starts having issues, and it seems like everything in life that could go wrong is going wrong and slowly their intense passion starts to fade and maybe instead of reading the Bible every night it becomes every other night. And every other night becomes two nights a week and then its drops to once a week and soon the fire is a pile of coals just barely warm. Isn't that similar to when you first get your blog? Everything you think about, everything that you encounter, you go through it all with a filter of how you could blog about it and so you post frequently. Yet the same thing that happened with the Christian happens with blogging, school and family and friends and volunteering and everything else starts to crowd in and soon you're blogging less and less until finally one day you realize that you're no longer blogging.

I think that is where I am right now in my relationship with God. I sort of had this relationship high about a year ago when I was pledging ADX and I've been coming off of that this school year. How do you find a balance between being like a super hot roaring fire and being a pile of coals? I know it doesn't make sense to be that super hot fire all the time just like being a pile of coals is basically like not being a fire at all, but I don't know how to find the happy medium. God, teach me what that middle point looks like. Show me what it means to be a fire for you.