I’m thankful that we serve a God with a sense of humor and a God who is patient. Have you ever had an instance where your dad wasn’t patient with you? I have had many of those instances. Whether it wasn’t holding the flashlight still enough or reading part numbers too fast or slow during inventory, impatience would lead to an argument. Thankfully God is also not like my earthly father (as we learned in Chapter 2) – Lies we believe about God). God is patient even with people who refuse to acknowledge Him…or in my case, those who believe they are just too busy to acknowledge Him, but truly want to.
The past two weeks, I have neglected my Bible reading and my prayer time. I have been overwhelmed with life. I have spent my time discontent with my surroundings in life. I have rushed from one volunteer activity to the next trying to keep my mind off of the fact that my husband will not be coming home until the weekend, and when he does come home, we have so many activities scheduled that we will only get the time we are asleep together.
On Monday of last week, I thought to myself, I need to do my reading for Bible Study. Only a bad leader wouldn’t do that before Thursday. Monday passed, Tuesday came and went, and Wednesday came. I fully intended to read the whole chapter Wednesday night, but the two pages I read was enough to get God’s point across. I sat down after cleaning the house, doing the laundry, talking to my Mom Sutter and Emily, and was exhausted. I got a lot accomplished, but was still feeling overwhelmed and sorry for myself because it just seems there are not enough hours in a day to accomplish all that I want to accomplish.
I opened the book to chapter five – Lies Women Believe about Priorities. Did you feel that? God just smacked me upside the head (in a very gentle way). It didn’t stop there though. The chapter was completely spot on to where I have been at in life. I struggle with being a people pleaser and doing activities to help people out or make them happy. The example from the book that has stuck with me, and I want to remember long term is regarding Christ’s ministry on earth. He did not accomplish what everyone else wanted Him to accomplish. His disciples wanted Him to overthrow the government. Followers wanted them to heal their loved ones, but God wanted Him to redeem the world. At the end of the day, the only person Christ pleased was God, and He is ALL that matters. Are you doing activities to please others or to please God? At Bible Study, the ladies shared that they struggle with the same thing as me….doing activities (which are not necessarily bad) to honor others which draw us away from our relationship with God.
So, I was very refreshed after Bible Study Thursday night. God had so gently reminded me that I am His child, and that a relationship with me is very important to Him. He could have chosen to make the activities I am involved in to fail, but rather He privately guided me back to what I needed to be doing all along, but God’s gentleness did not stop there. I had started about a month ago reading through Joshua. I never know what to “study” during my quiet time, and our church does expository preaching (studying sections of scripture), and I have learned a lot from that method, so I thought I would do the same thing but in a different area of the Bible. I had recently read a book about Rahab, so the book of Joshua interested me. Anyway, I am reading my Life Application Bible (KJV), and it has commentaries at the bottom of each page. I do not have my Bible handy with me, but I believe it was in Joshua 4 that it talks of Joshua assembling the tribes of Israel. He calls them out to hear from the Lord before crossing the Jordan river. The commentary discussed that you can’t go into situations without God’s guidance and expect everything to work out just as planned. No lie, it said, “you must get your priorities in order.”
Was God still talking to me? I think so, and man am I thankful! Not much has changed with my schedule, it’s still crazy. I still try fitting too much in a day. I still struggle with discontentment over my schedule and my husband’s schedule. I still struggle with people pleasing. So, what’s different? My priorities are getting in the right order. I can lay those struggles that I have been hording in my sack at God’s throne and fill my sack up with promises that God has given me.
And this weekend, I feel I was blessed for being obedient. God gave Jon and me a lot of time together which was SO needed. So, while that wasn’t much of a play-by-play of Bible Study this week, I hope it was an encouragement to you to get your priorities straight. God should be at the top of those priorities, and the lie that we can survive without prayer and time in the Word is a LIE. We must be seeking a relationship with God in order to maintain our sanity. So, if you haven’t read your Bible today, and you don’t have a pre-scheduled time to read it today, get off your computer and go read it now. Keep me accountable, and if you need me to keep you accountable, I would love the opportunity to walk along side you. You can even join me in Joshua if you would like. We’re getting ready to conquer Jericho……
The Swiss Bliss 