And then I looked at my life.
When I really started thinking about it, I realized that I could see this same circular cycle happening in my own life, just with different things. For me, it happens with spending time with God outside of church. I noticed how I can spend a week at church camp and be completely consumed with serving God, and then come home and completely forget everything I just learned. I can go on youth retreats and commit to changing things in my life and return only to revert back to my old self. I can hear an awesome lesson at church and then come back to the dorm and completely lose focus. I noticed how easy it is to get distracted by all the things I need to get done on a daily basis. Homework. Reading. Studying. Workouts. Hanging out with friends. Sleeping. Most of the time without me even noticing, I begin to push God to the background. When I don't have time to get everything done, the first thing I give up is my daily devotional. It is so easy on those mornings I am exhausted to lay in bed for an extra 15 minutes instead of getting up and spending quiet time with God. And when I first start slipping into this cycle, I usually don't feel guilty because I am so busy I don't even realize I haven't spent time with God. Realizing that, really forced me to take a step back and evaluate my priorities. If I have allowed myself to be so consumed with things of this world that I don't even realize I have sacrificed my time with God, then I have a really big problem. And on those days that I push God to the background and make time for much MUCH less important things, I feel like my life looks a lot like this:
The more I have thought about this, the more disappointed in myself I have become. I have embodied the exact characteristics that I gawked at other people for displaying. But the good news is, every day is a chance to start over. A chance to realign ourselves with God's plans.
In our Bible class, we have been looking at the Creation account in Genesis from different perspectives and seeing what new lessons we can learn from it. Their has been one lesson that has impacted my life more than any others we have learned so far, and that is this: if God was able to put the ENTIRE UNIVERSE in order, why don't we trust Him to order our lives? Not that He has to, but God has already proved that He is capable of doing so. So why do we make feeble attempts to order our lives without God's help? God never promises that our lives will be easy. And we will, no doubt. go through the valley at times. But wouldn't you rather travel through the valley that God has prepared and have Him walking with you, instead of trying to forge your own path in the dark? Psalm 34:8 says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!" And later, in verse 19, God reminds us that He will always be there when we, inevitably, face those difficult times. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all."- Psalm 34:19
On those days that I experience ultimate peace and joy in life, I find that I have priortized time to spend with God. To consult Him for advice. To tell Him about my struggles. And to ask for strength for the day ahead. And on those days, I find my life looking a lot more like this:
Organized. Calm. Enjoyable.
Commit today to stop pushing God to the background. Stop letting less important things take precendence. Stop making excuses. STOP GETTING DISTRACTED. God desires full obedience, not followers who quickly lose focus.