I realized the other night that I am not fully committed to God. I say all the time that I am, but it really hit me that I'm really not. This occurred as I was thinking of asking one of my pastors how they, as pastors, fed themselves spiritually. This got me thinking about how, when I am a pastor, I’ll be preaching about God, giving counsel about God, studying about God, etc., and after all that I need to put aside time to devote to God for myself. I then thought to myself, Man, that is a lot of God. Am I really ready for that? Am I ready for every single moment to be an sacrifice to God? Right now life is so comfortable. I think about, worship, and talk about God when I want to, usually on my timing. I like the comfortable-ness of it. It works for me. But to have a life where absolutely every moment needs to be about God--am I ready for that? It's my whole life.
I think this is why the greatest commandment that Jesus gave us was to love the Lord our God with everything that we've got. You cannot spend every single moment with a person that you do not love completely. From everything I hear about marriage from people who are absolutely committed to and love each other very deeply, even they need space from time to time. But with God, there's no space. He's always there. We don't get any alone time. It makes more sense now when Jesus said, "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:37-39). To devote every single moment of our lives to someone, to do everything to please them, to let there be no space between you and them, forever--is it within the human capacity to love this much? Or maybe it's something that only God, who is Love itself, can initiate in us.
I'm still thinking this stuff through, and maybe I'll never completely have it coherently figured out. I know this isn't going to happen automatically. But this is me, committing to be fully committed. So may I learn to live in discomfort. May I pick up my cross every day and work to give every moment to Him. May I lose myself in this Love, who somehow wants to spend every moment with me.
That's really cool. I am reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller right now. I'm not gaining so much from the book itself, but when I read it, I think back to times that I had like that, and then what he says makes me go "wow" an so on. I think I just described how to read. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteBut here is something: I hear people all the time saying that they aren't committed or how easy it is to get too comfortable. It never really clicked with me. I can understand it, but my heart was not included. I am just now beginning to grasp what Love is about and what "...losing [my] life for [Him]..." is all about. (Quoted from the Matthew you posted).
Okay. Steven's here. I will write later. Love Nick.