More than a Textbook (This Pastor's Struggle)

I was filling out my application for Dauphin Bible Camp this past week and there was a question regarding my personal devotions.  As I was taken aback by this question, for a Pastor of all people, I stopped and evaluated.

What is the state of my personal devotions?  I get paid to spend time in The Word and to pray and to be spiritual...but when I am not working my 40 hours per week, is my life filled with God?

I googled the definition of devotion and this is what the computing machine came up with:

1. love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause.

2. prayers or religious observances.

So, the conundrum I run into as a Pastor, who is paid to have love, loyalty, and enthusiasm for Jesus and observe prayers and religious observances, am I working when I spend time with God and in the Bible?  How does one separate the two?

While a student in Bible College, I remember my English teacher, who is now President of the College, we were warned in our time studying the Bible, it will become more of a textbook than the Living Word of God.  And that exact thing happened.  I would go to church and try to figure out what the pastor said wrong.  In my mind, I knew all the answers, but my heart was not transformed.  It took some time after my first stint at Bible College to realize, my heart wasn't in it, but my mind was.

Now, 14 years later, I am a Pastor and it's the same thing again.  It brings me back 6 years or so when I was working as a carpenter.  I would work all day with wood and when I came home, I didn't want anything to do with renovating our house.  I wanted to separate work with non-work.  Therefore, very few projects got finished at our house.

Now, it feels like the same thing.  We are all called to be Christians (Christ-like) yet, I get paid to do it too.  But, our walk with God needs to be personal too.  Am I being Jesus to my family?  To the grocery clerk?  to my neighbour?  So, in a way, we are all called to be Jesus-people every hour of every day.

My struggle is that I desire to personally love God with all my heart.  And my desire is that I would not be a Christian because I have to for my work, but I desire to from my innermost being.