Time and time again I hear people talking about submitting their wills to Christ and letting Him take over their day to day lives. This is wonderful, if I may understate it, but the wording makes it sound so easy. It's as if one can simply say "here you go, God, I'm all yours!" and instantly those selfish "But I WANT" thoughts leave one's mind forever. I have not found this to be my experience. Whenever I get fed up of making poor decisions and tell God I'd rather do it His way, no sooner have the words left my lips than the "but I wants" start creeping into the picture.
I had to sit back and ask myself how I really think God wants me to spend my time. Not in a faraway, one-day-I'll-be-a-missionary sense, but in a practical, within-the-next-24-hours sense. Based on the example of Jesus in Scripture, I figured God would probably like it if I kept Him in mind in everything I do. How can I do that practically? Also based on the example of Jesus, I thought the easiest way would be to start the morning off reading the Word and getting in some prayer time. Somehow I always talk myself out of this because there are other things I think I need to be doing. I spent some time with a college friend of mine and his wife this month, and he made a challenging statement, "I'd rather have a wife that has had her quiet time than a wife that has cleaned the house." A bold statement, and one that really made me question my priorities. Why exactly do I think the dishes need to be washed when their is an eternal Creator that would like to be acknowledged by His creation? So I started taking the time out to read the Word and spend a few moments in prayer with my Abba.
What surprised me about taking the time to do this every morning, even when I'm tired and I want to get to work on time and I need to thaw out the chicken, is that my thoughts really were more full of the Lord throughout the daytime. It made it so much easier to make the right decisions because God was at the forefront of my mind. How incredible to have eternity at the top of my priority list!
And for the record, no, I didn't get as much done this week as I would have liked to. My complicated seared chicken recipe did not get made. I didn't hit the snooze button for 15 extra minutes of sleep in the morning. It was hard work committing to my time in the Word in the morning and at night. But the cats still got fed, the apartment stayed relatively clean, I didn't lose sleep and I was productive at work. My relationships were better and I was much less tempted to take part in the gossip at work. James knew what he was talking about when he wrote "“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Take the extra effort today to commune with God!
"Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity." -John Piper
No comments:
Post a Comment