You know, I’m just going to be real honest tonight. Honesty and transparency are bliss anyway right?
Ok. So get this: God calls my heart into this marvelous journey ahead of me called the World Race, yet somehow I start to slip away from Him. How does that happen? All I can think is Romans 5:17!
“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”
Please do not misunderstand or dismiss me. Hang in here with me a moment.
God calls me onto a world wide, eleven month mission trip and then the devil comes out at me with his teeth showing chasing me down like a baby gazel in sly, back-door ways!
All of a sudden church activites increase by what feels like a million. My friends and social life get shuffled between burners in order for me to get fundraising accomplishments met. My extended family decides now would be a great time for not only one of us to move, but six of us. And now, all of a sudden, between the buzzing of my morning alarm for my busy day ahead and the exhausion late at night from a bustling and hustling day, I have lost my time to meditate on God’s Word and devote time to our relationship…THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!
Please, please, please, understand that church, friends, family, relationships, etc are all wonderful blessings from the Lord. There is not a thing wrong with any of it. But I have learned recently that too much of a good thing idolizes over the most important thing.
THIS IS WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME.
So in attempts to get back to where I belong, I decided that reguardless of the fact that I just came home from church, I would open God’s Word and talk with Him. Boy oh boy am I absolutely estatic that I did.
I’m picking up where I left off studying through James, and while I have read this book before (being my favorite book of the New Testament), I am getting out of it something different than any other time I have read it. For instance, tonight – James 2:8.
“If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,’ you are doing well.”
The “royal law” being love. And not just love, but “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Granted some of us love ourselves a little too much and others do not love themselves enough, but in this verse, loving oneself means to treat oneself with a healthy and balanced respect.
“Okay God…” I began, “That’s what I’ve been doing is try to love on friends, family, others and now I’m behind on loving you. I’m confused.”
But of course, in a relationship, one person doesn’t just talk to a wall right? God spoke. God explained. Matthew 22:35-40
“One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38“This is the great and foremost commandment. 39“The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ 40“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Oh yeah. How could I have ever forgotten. How could this ever had slipped away from me?
See, somewhere along the way my heart got swept away in relationships, my soul got swept away in fundraising, and my mind got swept away in my fast-pace life.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, please do not get distracted and pulled away as Satan would have happen from the ONE PERSON whom we are all living for. Stay focused! Love God first and foremost with ALL of your heart, soul and mind. Then love others as yourselves. I mean, that is what we are going on the World Race to do right? Love on others in order for them to see the love of God?
I’ll end this ridiculously long, ranting blog post with this:
“Our devotion to God and true religion is illustrated most poignantly on the pages of other lives. That’s where much of our story is told. We think we want this massive biography written by God with our name as the title, but His way is a much better read. And the character development? Sublime.” -Beth Moore
