Leftovers

Another Sunday has come and gone and I am ready for a new week. But before we get there, I wanted to share something that is heavy on my heart tonight. (No, Melanie, this is not what the Sunday School lesson was on today.)

I feel like the kingdom of God isn't moving forward, God's people aren't seeing growth as God intended because we are getting in our own way.  More specifically we are stretching ourselves so thin that all God gets is our leftover energy.  Because we aren't willing to give up some of the things "we've always done" in order to put God first. I am not talking about bad things. I am talking about good things, things for our kids, our families, our friends, that we are allowing to take precedence over God.

By the time we make it to God's day, we are already so exhausted from the week before, from the running around on Saturday, that we are useless come Sunday morning. When God wants us to be able to minister one to another and gain encouragement and strength as a church body, we are barely awake through the sermon and are just counting down the minutes until it is over. Instead of being able to be spiritually awake, ready for what God wants to do, with ears eager to hear God speak and hearts ready to respond, we are just there for appearances sake, if we manage to crawl out of bed at all.

So its time to start doing some prioritizing. Instead of giving up God's things, why don't we start giving up the other things that are keeping us from giving God our best?

I am not foolish enough to think that even with your priorities right there won't be days when you don't feel like serving God and you don't feel like spending time in the word and prayer.  But those are the days when you most desperately need to push through, to be faithful to God as he is faithful to you. Day in and day out. Through the worn seasons of life and through the exhaustion. That is when our spiritual roots are deepened and your foundation made stronger. Because if you make an excuse now when you are tired, it will be easier to make an excuse for something else the next time serving God seems like a chore. 

It's a fight. Every day. The fight of faith (which is what we talked about in Sunday School). And the struggle will be worth it. So worth it. To hear "well done, my good and faithful servant."