… But have it all wrong.
I’ve now been home from for over four months. In our debriefs leading up to the end of the race we had been warned about the “Post Race Depression”.
I know that sounds awful… and I was determined that I WOULD NOT GET IT!
I refused to become one of those people that get home to do nothing but be lazy, mopey, big talkers, who see all the problems with the world but do NOTHING.
So my solution was to jump right back into work (2 days after getting home) and sign up for every ministry I could find!
It was going great (I thought). I was getting involved in a bunch of wonderful things, prison ministry, drug and alcohol rehab, disaster relief, special needs ministry, sports ministry… and then it all hit me like a load of concrete dumped on my head.
I’d failed.
I felt stuck and unable to get out as reality settled in on me.
I’d worked so hard to make sure I didn’t “do NOTHING” that I’d tried to do EVERYTHING. And I’d spread myself too thin. And it came to the breaking point where I felt like a complete failure to everyone I was trying to help. This all sunk in while I was on a deployment with Hope Force International, down in Louisiana, doing Hurricane Isaac relief work.
By the fourth day in (Sunday) I was feeling OFF. You know that feeling when you know you’ve got something wrong but you’re not quite sure what it is, you just know something is not right. Well I was feeling that feeling very strongly and I knew God was calling me to get alone with Him. The feeling of failure set in when I realized that I’d totally forgotten about the Bible study that I was supposed to be teaching RIGHT THEN in Prison back in PA. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach… I’d went and stood those precious women up. NOOOOO!
When I finally took the time to sit down, get quite, and talk to my Father, He was finally able to start speaking to me.
God showed me that I was trying to DO everything for Him but in all my DOING I was neglecting just BEING with Him.
I had lost sight of what comes first.
Love GOD… then Love people.
In trying to serve God, I’d made my relationship with God all about what WE could do for other people. In essence I was trying to love the people God loves more then simply loving Him and enjoying Him.
I was acting like a mother who tries to show her husband love by ignoring him and spending all her time loving their kids (that he loves). Or a husband that tries to show his wife love by buying her things but never spending quality time with her.
I needed to come back to my FIRST LOVE because He was jealous over me!
He is JEALOUS OVER ME!!!!
I forget that so often!!! It’s the hardest truth for me to accept, God’s unconditional LOVE. But its SOOOO BEAUTiful!
Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
I want to be so consumed with God that I can’t possibly miss my time with Him because I NEED it, I WANT it, and it’s what MAKES me!
It is easy for me to look back now and see how my focus had gotten of center. But in the moment I truly thought I was doing all the right things. And don’t get me wrong, they are great things, and ministries that I’m still a part of to some degree. I don’t think I need to do LESS for God, there is nothing that I could do that is TOO much for God. And I certainly shouldn’t love people less. I just need to make sure all I do is in the right order and that in all my DOING I don’t forget to BE what God first and foremost created me to BE:
His Daughter
His Lover
His Admirer
His Companion
Mark 12:30-31 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like it, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
