Thoughts About Easter

So I'm a Christian, and I'd like to think I'm a dedicated one. But I didn't go to Easter this Sunday, and I felt so guilty afterwards. I feel like I have sunk to a new low in terms of laziness, and the reason why was just because I stayed up really late watching random junk on YouTube, eating carrots and hummus, and just kind of being dumb (going forward I want to have a rule for myself where I aim to always go to bed by midnight on Saturday night just so I can be sure to have energy for church the next day). This has exposed a level of carelessness on my part; God doesn't care whether I'm there or not, it doesn't change my status as a believer. That was my mentality. But I'm trying to go into ministry this next year, so what does that say about me? That I'm not taking my relationship with God seriously. I'm compartmentalizing Him, so that I only acknowledge Him when I'm around other Christians, and when I'm not I don't try at all, because I don't need to keep up appearances when I'm by myself, It's a horrible mentality, and I'm starting to see it in my self and it makes me ashamed.

On another note, everyone in my family was in a bad mood on Easter, and there was no one there that I look up to spiritually, so I felt as though I cared the most about the meaning of Easter on a heart level, and yet I don't even care enough to go to church on the day that commemorates the single most important event that has ever happened. It left me thinking very discontent with the way things were that day. Yes we were together as a family, yes we were having surface levels of fun. But there was nothing more, and it made me sad. My own apathy is breaking my heart. And then on this holy day there was no one around me who I could look to to inspire me to care more or be more reverent.

One thing that popped into my head as an excuse more than anything else was that I do Christian college ministry as a student, so as far as making deposits in the worship-of-God bank, I feel like I do it every day, so it's not entirely necessary for me to uphold the sanctity of this day because that's for Christians who don't contribute as much as I do. But that's just not the point. My heart in that moment cared more about sleep and food and entertainment than God. Along with my own appearance, that's four idols I've got blocking me from being united with God. I'm realizing that my faith this past year has been more about proving something to other people than it has been about me letting my relationship with God become an outpouring of love to others. My greatest motivation to do anything good has been to impress other Christians with how Christian I am. I almost think I have this dependence on being inspired by others to live well rather than just living well of my own accord. Maybe that's why I turn away Christian guys who I don't think can completely lead me; I don't see them as someone who could give me the 24-hour spiritual inspiration that's been keeping me going in college. So now I'm about to graduate, and it's going to start having to come from me. From somewhere inside my own heart, from the Holy Spirit Himself. I wonder what it takes to live like that.