I was going to start by apologizing for yet another meandering down my "thought lane" since I have been so focused on what kind of a Christian I am and . . . really who I am serving. But alas, isn't that truly what we should all be striving for? To be more like Christ.
So instead of apologizing for going over this yet again. . . I will encourage you to join me on my journey as I try to figure out exactly where God is calling me. . . . or what God is calling me to.
There's more thoughts mulling around in my brain today. . . more than I can actually sort out and pour out through my fingers. So for now, I will share something I read today.
I've been trying to figure out how to live my every day life, yet have Christ first in it. How to make Christ my priority instead of myself. And so those thoughts have been rolling around in the hollows of my head all morning as I get ready for Spring Break. And as I sat down to strike a few things off my to do list, I noticed I hadn't turned my JESUS CALLING calender over to March 27. So I did, and this is what I read.
Be still in My Presence, even though countless tasks clamor for your attention. Nothing is as important as spending time with Me. While you wait in My Presence, I do My best work within you: transforming you by the renewing of your mind. If you skimp on this time with Me, you may plunge headlong into the wrong activities, missing the richness of what I have planned for you.
Do not seek Me primarily for what I can give you. Remember that I, the Giver, am infinitely greater than any gift I might impart to you. Thought I delight in blessing My children, I am deeply grieved when My blessings become idols in their hearts. Anything can be an idol of it distracts you from Me as your First Love.When I am the ultimate Desire of your heart, you are safe from the danger of idolatry. As you wait in My Presence, enjoy the greatest fight of all: Christ in you, the hope of Glory!!
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will. ~Romans 12:2
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. ~Revelation 2:4
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ~Colossians 1:27
I will admit, I kind of stopped short. Is it possible that I have turned so many of the blessings that God has granted to me, into idols? Have I gotten so absorbed in the things He has given to me - the blessings, whatever they might be - that I have turned my focus onto the gifts He's granted me, rather than onto the Giver of those gifts? I admit. I kind of sat there and thought about that for awhile. Certainly I acknowledge that God has blessed me with all those things in my life, but have I become too focused on those blessings? Do the blessings consume my thoughts more than the Blesser?
Not sure what else to say about this because I think. . . maybe they have. And maybe that's going to have to be my first step in my journey. I know I have felt I need to put Christ first, but I never truly thought that it was His blessings that I had put first instead of HIM!!!
I've been praying that He will show me where I need to change. . . . and I think He just did. . . .
If there is one thing in life that I cannot stand, it is when I lose something. This has gone far back to when I was a child, and up until this very day.
Point in case: Yesterday I taught several students. I am organizing next years piano schedule, as well as trying to nail down all the songs that my students will be playing, and have TRIED to keep it all organized in a file folder near the piano. Also in this file folder were several invoice payments for this months lessons - both cash and cheques!!!
So at the end of my lessons yesterday, I went to reach for my folder, and (* heart drops to the pit of my stomach*) I couldn't find it anywhere. My daughter helped me look, but to no avail. I then assumed that I must have gotten it mixed up with some students books as I scooped them up and returned them to their book bags. So, I proceeded to call all my student's parent's to check if it had indeed shown up in their books. One by one, each parent told me - no, it wasn't there. So then my husband, daughter and myself turned the studio, my office, and every place imaginable, upside down in the hopes of finding it.
You see, the reason this sort of thing bothers me is because I know it is SOMEWHERE!!! It's not a little thing. It's larger than a sheet of paper, and certainly fatter (there WERE cheques and cash in there!!!) This little issue of mine goes way back to when I was a young girl of maybe 9 or 10. I had been trick or treating with my siblings, and had one favorite item in my snack bag. A package of Mackintosh toffee! OH YES! That was pure gold. I could share everything else, but that package of toffee. . . well it was mine. And I was going to save it for such a time that I needed a pick me up. So, I went and stuffed it way in the back of my closet where all my dolls and doll crib etc. were stored. I didn't think about it for a long time. Several months later, as I was cleaning my room, I remembered it. WHAT JOY!!! I hauled out the doll crib where I KNEW I had stashed it. . . . but it wasn't there. Out came the next bag of doll clothes. Not there. Then came the box of small toys that were my keepsakes. Not in there. I KNEW it had to be there somewhere. But NOTHING! I asked my siblings, but they didn't know anything about it. I asked my Mom. No one knew where it was. For months, I would search high and low looking for that prized package of gold. I never did find it, and it has always made me wonder: Did I eat it? Did my brother or sister find it and not tell the truth? It HAD to be somewhere.
Well, that was my feeling last night. That folder didn't just up and walk away. Having said that, I have also been known to absentmindedly put things in the most peculiar places. FYI, whipped cream does not last very long in an non-refrigerated cupboard. Nor does fresh spinach fare very well, when placed into the freezing compartment of the fridge rather than the crisper. So when our search wound down, Keith made a comment that it was highly possible I had put it somewhere strange and it would eventually show up. To which I responded, "well make sure you check the freezer the next time you go downstairs". AND VOILA!!!! The light bulb went on!!! I recalled going downstairs to check on our aquarium pump!!! And in one swift exit downstairs, I recovered the folder that had once been lost and now was found!!!
As relief washed over me, (and I quickly got my deposit ready!!!), I got to thinking about how frustrating it is when I cannot find something, but how amazingly filled with relief I am when I find it. The whole episode got me to thinking about the parable in the Bible that I had taught to my Preschool kids not that long ago about the woman and the lost coin, and the analogy Jesus made about when someone turns their lives around and follows Jesus. I certainly knew the relief and joy I felt last night, and I can only imagine what Jesus must feel when someone leave their lives behind to follow Him.
But I also got to thinking about how I would have felt if I had found my folder, only to find that all the cheques were missing!!! Can you imagine how deflating that would be? How disappointing and sick I would have felt? I wonder if that is the way God feels when we say we love Him, but choose to follow our own path. If you've read my blog from the other day about being hot or cold, (you can read it HERE), you will understand where these thoughts are coming from. I think about how may years ago, I committed my life to following God. I recommitted it to Him when I was a teenager, and have for the most part followed "the right" path. However, over the last few weeks, I have begun to wonder how truthful that commitment was. As I've taken a good hard look at my life, and watched as I've made selfish decisions, as I've made choices that please me rather than God, as I've gone ahead with my life without as much as a thought to how it pleases God, I've started to wonder if my life isn't a bit like that file folder. I know God knows what my future brings I understand that. He knows what my decisions have been and will be.
But yesterday I got to thinking about how my life, and yes - at times - my lack of commitment to Him, must be like thinking I had found the folder I'd lost, only to discover that contents weren't in it. I've wondered if that is how God sees me? (Please forgive me for humanizing God!) But I have to wonder, if I had opened that folder yesterday to find the contents empty, how sick and disappointed I would have been. I wonder if that is how God sees me. I had made a promise to Him years ago. To follow Him. To seek Him. To serve Him. But here I am today - folder pretty much empty. Doing my own thing. SAYING I am a follower of Him, yet 99% of the time, serving myself.
I wonder how that makes God feel. I wonder. . .
I think it's time I start getting rid of the self, and filling "my folder" with the things in my life that I promised God along time ago. Service to Him. A heart of submission to His will. A life given over FULLY to Him.
I trust as you listen to the lyrics of this old hymn, you will be motivated with me to move into a closer. . . a deeper. . . A REAL relationship with God. One that puts our own desires behind us. One that focuses on serving the very One who saved us. One that loses our own life to gain the life that was saved for us by Jesus Christ. Let's lay down our own selfishness and focus our eyes on the one that FOUND us!!
I have to admit. . . sometimes it is - as they say - hard to see the forest for all the trees.
This weekend I was reminded that sometimes it's those small blessings that we need to take a really good look at, rather than hoping for something big to happen.
For example, this morning as I walked into the church to teach at Preschool, I saw a smiley face sticker on the ground. Now that in itself might make someone smile, but the reason it made me smile was because it was MY smiley face sticker. You see, I taught Sunday School yesterday and the children were doing some decorating on a piece of a log that turned out to still be quite damp. It was frustrating for them and me to try and get those stickers to stick on. However, we did have some good conversation about forgiveness and judgment. In the end most of the stickers ended up in the garbage pail but others took white glue to glue them on. So that was a small blessing. A great Sunday School lesson. However, this morning I was was "re-blessed" by it because of the sticker I saw on the ground. It reminded me that my kids do listen, they do hear what we are teaching them, and no matter how seemingly insignificant it feels we are, the kids DO take their crafts and lessons home with them, and share it with those around them. I guess one child is minus a smiley face, but it certainly made me smile this morning.
Today as I sat and had my lunch, the two bird feeders that sit in front of our patio doors brought me much joy as I watched a chickadee flit back and forth opening seed after seed. I am pretty sure our cat enjoyed it too as she sat happily chattering as the bird flew back and forth between the feeders!!
As I listened to my son and daughter banter back and forth this morning, I was thankful for their silly chatter because it reminded me - they really do love each other!
One of my piano students gave me one of her little butterfly knickknacks that she was getting rid of. It's not that it's an incredibly unique item, but it DID come from the heart. She could have thrown it out or given it to one of her friends, but she thought to wrap it up and give it to me. It sits proudly here on my desk to remind me that what I do is about more than just teaching piano.
As I listened to my daughter and her friend chat back and forth this afternoon, I was struck by what a blessing it was that I was able to pick them up for her friend's piano lesson and that Taylor has such incredible Christian friends.
These things. . . I so often take for granted. Those and so many more. I get bogged under by other things. Life gets clouded over by the "big" things. But today, I was reminded that it is the little things that ARE the big things in the end. Those are the blessings that bring me joy. They are the every day things that happen that God has blessed me with. They are the things that I so often overlook - yet the things that God presents me with every day - over and over.
Join me in looking for the little blessings today. Because God is giving them to us everywhere. We just need to open our eyes and realize, that the little things ARE the big things. They are all blessings God has wrapped up as gifts for us to take with us every day. Truly God has given us many great things!
