Whos' On First?

I am glad this blog is not just called truth and love. For starters TAL doesn't sound as good as TALIA. But more importantly it is understood that truth and love are nothing without action. I can testify to this based on the way God has moved in my life the past few days. The young lady I have been talking to recently decided that we needed to take a step back from each other because there are some things that needed to be straightened out. There was no promise of resuming any sort of communication and so it has been pretty emotionally painful to say the least. However, with the pain and emotional distress that comes with this sort of stuff there also comes a decision: Am I going to turn from God and try to fill my life with earthly pleasure or am I going to turn to God and find my fill in His joy? Praise be to God that He has given me the desire to turn to Him. The past few days have been some of the hardest I can remember emotionally, yet some of the most fulfilling spiritually. 

You see, I have always served God out of the pleasure and comfortability that is my wicked heart. I have always been the "right type" of Christian and said all the "right" things. But my heart was not His. It was mine. I had just added God as a back-up plan or a fixer when I needed Him. I have never truly been completely dependent on Him. If I took a "step of faith", I always had to see what was beneath my foot. As much as I believed God was first in my life, my conscious told me that I was first.

It took a shake-up from God to bring to my knees in repentance. I was watching a sermon from Francis Chan on priorities and the passage he was speaking from hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the first chapter Haggai:

 1 In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, 2 “Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying: ‘This people says, “The time has not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.”’”
3 Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” 5 Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways!
       6 “ You have sown much, and bring in little; 
      You eat, but do not have enough; 
      You drink, but you are not filled with drink; 
      You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; 
      And he who earns wages, 
      Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” 
7 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways! 8 Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,” says the LORD. 9 “You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says the LORD of hosts. “Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. 10Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. 11 For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor ofyour hands."12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared the presence of the LORD. 13 Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, spoke the LORD’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you, says the LORD.” 14 So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius.

The Israelites had just returned to their land and they hadn't begun rebuilding God's temple because they felt it wasn't the right time. Instead, they took to task in building their own houses and taking pleasure in their houses looking good rather than putting God and His house first. And so, God punished them by taking everything away. He wanted to be priority number one in the hearts and lives of His people (if you notice He refers to them as 'this' people). In response the people obeyed God and His response to them was that He was with them! 

God has taken a big part of my life away because He was not number one in my life. I have become spiritually lazy and thought that somehow I could manipulate the Creator of the universe!!?? But God in His goodness has convicted me and I am responding in the only way I can...obedience. Over the past few days God has opened up doors for me to teach in children's church, start a men's prayer group, and amazingly has possibly made a way for me to go to either Thailand, Egypt, or Burkina Faso in Africa. A week ago I was content with my life...why...because it was MY life. Now my world has been turned upside down and I am learning to be content in Him. God must be priority number one and have complete control. He accepts no other position. I am thankful that He is teaching me and that His grace covers my sin. Praise GOD!