Lately, I have been feeling really far from God. I want to have an intimate relationship with Him, but I have been falling behind. Well, I said that I wanted an intimate relationship. Sometimes I want to feel the love that my Savior feels for me. But I am not willing to make the sacrifice. I'm not willing to sacrifice the time, or the effort, or anything that would require me actually doing something. I want God to do all the work, and for me to just go along with Him. But then I realized that I don't really want God to be the center of my life. I wanted to do my own thing, and for God to just get off of my back, so that I could live my life the way I wanted to. I was on FaceBook and I saw a flair (I am totally obsessed with flair - I will probably make flair references all the time) that said, "God wants full custody, not just weekends." (Anonymous) That caught my eye a lot, and I just kind of slid my eyes over the words and pretended not to see them. They were compelling, and I didn't want to feel the way those words made me feel.
I didn't even give Him weekends. I didn't really give any of my time to Him. I went to church on Sundays and made sure that I went to all the kids events and got good, pretty "service hours" - you know, the things you do for clubs. You don't really care about what the "service" is, as long as you get the signature that looks really good on a college application. I did the hours, but I didn't really care about what I was doing. My heart wasn't in it. Yeah, I enjoyed being at church, and yeah, I enjoyed making the kids laugh, but I didn't really care about doing the things that God wanted me to do. I would do them if it was convenient for me. If I didn't have anything better to do, I would look into what God wanted me to do. If I felt like it, I would do it.
But God doesn't care about what is convenient for you. He isn't trying to make life easy for you. He cares about what you do for Him now. He wants you to do the task that He assigned to you, and He wants you to do it when He tells you to do it.
God never promised that following Him would be easy. In fact, Jesus said almost the exact opposite: "
16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
18“Which ones?” the man inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony,19honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
20“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
26Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" - Matthew 19:16-26
Jesus told the man that in order to enter into the kingdom of Heaven, he had to sell everything he owned, and follow Him. When he heard this, the rich man walked away, and denied Jesus.
As humans, we don't want to sacrifice things. We don't want to give up our money, we don't want to give up our time, and we don't want to give up our lives to God. But that's what He requires. He requires our lives, and our resources. Why do we withhold them? They aren't ours - they are gifts from God. They won't save us; our earthly life is short compared to eternity. When our bodies are dead, our possessions will cease to matter. We should be more worried about storing up treasure in Heaven: " But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:20
When we stand before the Throne, what will our earthly possessions get us? We can't buy our way into heaven. We can't earn our way into heaven. There is only one way to get to heaven: through Jesus Christ, who came down and lived a perfect life, yet died for us so that we could spend eternity with Him and His Father.
Sorry, I kind of got sidetracked. I was saying that Jesus had never promised His children an easy ride. "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first." John 15:18. We will face resistance, and we will face hardships. People don't like the name of Jesus because Jesus will require them to change their lifestyles. I don't wan to hear God speak to me because I knew that He would tell me to change. I didn't want to change. I thought I was happy doing my own thing.
But now when I think about it, am I really happy? Do I really feel happy when I refuse to listen to God? I'm not. I feel like I'm always looking over my shoulder to make sure that no one catches me reading this book or listening to this music, or thinking these words. I feel bad about it, but I keep doing it. Why? Why don't I listen to my conscience, even though I feel horrible when I don't? It makes no sense to me....
I have noticed that when I am not close to God, it affects my behavior. I feel horrible about myself all the time (not the way I look or anything like that; more of what's going on in my head.) and it changes the way I act toward other people.
Well, I hope that I have given you something to think about.
Love in Christ, always,
Tyler Henke
