I wonder if and how often God get's frustrated with us. I mean seriously as simple as he's tried to make it, we keep skewing off the path. Especially with gifts he's given us. Like the song Blessed be the name of the Lord, it says "Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise you" but in reality and honesty we should be singing "every blessing you pour out I'll probably put it in front of you."
I was reading in James 5 about Rich Oppressors. James isn't hating on the worthlessness of rich people, he's hating the worthlessness of riches. Ok so start out of what it should have been like. "You have fruit and I have meat, lets trade those 3 pieces of fruit for this piece of meat?" "Ok" Then eventually we got to money, which is pretty much a piece of material people decided was worth something. (if you think about it, the $1 bill and the $100 dollar bill are still made of the same parchment and ink, but one has a different design than the other). So we need this material (money) to get things we need to survive, so we ask God for it. God, out of his generosity and if it's in his plan, gives it to us. Some, he even gives more material to, which gives them more to give out, or more authority so people can listen to them share bout God. But somehow in the process of all of this, our focus goes off of it's a material God's given us to survive, or to be able to show others to him, to where it becomes our god, (not the golden statue kind). It's the type of god that we begin to define ourself by, we begin to not only define who we are by the amount of it we have, but it determines our actions. One extreme version of it is Golumn on the Lord of the Rings. The ring is his god, it consumes him and all of his actions are devoted to just getting the ring. How many people live and their actions are just devoted to getting money? When Golumn finally gets the ring what happens? He sits there and stares at it, his 30 seconds of happiness is then overcome by the fear someone will take it away from him. So Suddenly he wants to put it away and hide it and not enjoy it because he might lose it. Sound like anyone with a money-god? We take the gift or blessing God has given us for us to survive and to be able to point people to him better and became so focused on it that it messes up our lives and God's plan.
It's like standing at bat in a baseball game and when the ball comes catching it and running over to the fence, sitting down and petting the ball. Thats not what the ball was meant for, not only did you mess up your position and place in the game, you just messed up the game and missed the purpose of the game. But there are more balls, and there is more money. So the game/life goes on without you and your missing out on the fun of the game/ on life because you have your ball and are afraid to let anyone play with it, when really it wasn't yours to start with.
But it's easy to point fingers at those who have made money their god, but it's not just money. Think of all the other things we do the same thing with. Something God has given us to help us, and for us to better point to him, but we make it our god, our ring, our baseball. How about relationships? Boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives? They were given to us as helpmates, as a helper, as someone to keep us physical company. But somehow in the point of that we get a little self-centered and self-focused, we do what we do and define ourselves by him or her. Our actions and what we do are not to please God and show others to him, but instead they are to make the other person happy and to just be with that person. But little bits of happiness are often overcome by fear of losing him/her. Self-inadequacies, or someone else being better, or this person acts differently - all these lies slip in and make us anxious and fearful so that we don't lose him/her, the ring, the ball. But if we aren't holding on tightly, if we aren't defined or have this relationship as our god, then everything is more free. The baseball game continues to go on playing. It's like the 38 Special song, "Hold on Loosely," it says "Just hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly, you're gonna loose control."
There's many other gifts that we move out of it's place. Friends, schoolwork, our jobs, family, health, materialistic things, etc. There's so many things that God has given us to help us and given us to help point to him, but somehow either individually or as a society we have morphed out of it's proper place and in front of God so it defines us, controls our actions, controls our thought processes, and our motivations.
I wonder and pray that we'll know what it will look like and live the way we should with everything in it's proper place. But it doesn't seem like it's like cleaning a room and once it's in it's place it stays there. It seems like it's more of a race. Where as we have to run hard after God because he's always leading the pack. but there's a lot of other things that are racing us. These relationships, money, family, material things, school, friends, are all racing us, and if we slow down or stop following hard after God, and these other things don't stop (which they don't) then they pass us and get in between of us and God. Often times they run competitively, they'll get in front of another runner then slow down. Which means that we are slowed down and further space is put in between us and God. But often times it takes God coming back to us and running with us to move and pass the things, or it takes us just deciding not to follow these things anymore and to put the petal to the metal, give all we have, and push past these objects that are in our way. And if you've ever ran competitively, you know it's so much easier to stay infront of someone than to try and pass someone.
So I guess Paul was right about running the race in a way to win the prize. I guess to end it. . Ready. . . Set. . . GO.
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