Where Is God?

Where is God?

Not where is God in general, but where was God in my day? I was thinking this on Saturday, my weekend, my free time. An entire day passed and aside from a prayer of gratitude on the ride home from errands, I didn’t go to my Abba once! Not once! Where has my passion for Him gone? After I came home from DTS, it was Bible study or worship or intercession every day! It was diving into His word and learning new things about my life in Him all the time!

And now, where is God?
There’s something interesting that I’ve seen and I’d like to verbalize. I complain a lot. I complain about my Church, my life, my money and my circumstances. I envy other people’s seemingly so easy and normal lives. To me, it looks like movie lives DO exist. Because they’re all around me! Imagine, most people having carpet in their homes! And not just rugs, but real carpet. And AC! Pools? Multiple cars? They spend hundreds of dollars on their pets? The movies ARE based on real life.

Life in America anyways. Which brings me back to my point, after many years and tears I finally find myself back in the State that I begged God for incessantly. And am I thankful? No. I think of my Church, my life, my money and my circumstances. I need to slap myself over the head! Because it’s not my Church, it’s His bride. And it’s not my life, it’s His which He bought at the highest price. It’s not my money, it’s His that He’s lending me. And it’s not my circumstances, but His presence in them. But it’s hard to remember that. I’m constantly finding myself going through the process of me, me, me and then realizing how empty it makes me feel and running back to Abba.

I don’t want Him to be my second choice! I want Him to be my only choice. We sing songs about God being good to us, about God loving us and about devoting ourselves to God. And honestly, I’m seriously sick of all this mushy love-song crap that I keep hearing on the radio. Yes, God loves us. But we don’t say that humbly; it’s like when we’re singing it we do so with pride! We may sing “I’m a sinner but You are a Savior”, but we don’t really mean that. We don’t fall down and worship God JUST because He is God. We worship Him when He is good to us, when He loves us and when He gives us good times. But when was the last time we say a song not mentioning anything other than the fact that God is God? I’ll give an example.

I love Tenth Avenue North, I really do. But one of their most popular songs is misleading. I’m talking about Love Is Here. Only seconds into the song you hear, “Come to the Father you who work, and you’ll work no more.” Now my human side says, ‘yesss! I get to be lazy for eternity!’ Because that’s what it sounds like. What do you think heaven is going to be? Laying around, eating grapes and being immortal for an unfathomable length of forever? I don’t think so. And I don’t think it will be playing golf either (at least not all the time, though I do think God has many fun sides of heaven for us). God created us with a purpose, with drive and with ambition: a hunger to create and busy ourselves. If you took a honey bee away from flowers and it’s beehive, what would it do? Fly aimlessly around and then die. Work is not a bad thing! It’s a God thing!

I try not to forget this but it happens. And then I hear songs like Love Is Here, and I wonder how many Christians are deluded and think that if they just stay away from the big sins and go to Church on Sundays, then one day they will get to be lazy for eternity. Oh, and with angels serving us of course. That is not heaven... That is hell. If this earth does not teach us that selfishness is the pit of hell, then there is little hope for us. We spend our lives constantly chasing our own desires, and look around! America is miserable in her wealth. We spend more than we have so we can get that new car, that new TV, or that new expansion on our house. We call in “sick” because “we deserve a day off!” There is a reason there are so many quotes from successful people telling us to find what it is that we truly love and work at that for the rest of our lives. Because that is what heaven is! That is where God is in our lives.

But I digress. My point is, God is not nearly as present in my mind as I wish He was. And that responsibility falls on me. I’m the one who let my worship sessions and quiet times slip, only doing them every 3 or 5 or 7 days... That’s my fault. I’m the one who goes to work and only thanks God maybe every 1 in 10 prayers. The other 9 are spent asking God to make work go smoothly. Selfish.

So here’s my new goal, and I want to be held accountable to it. If you read this and it’s not because you accidentally clicked on this link instead of that YouTube video of the cat chasing the laser beam, then I ask you to help hold me accountable. If you remember, it would be appreciated. Okay, so here goes:

1. I want to put a spending freeze on the money God has given me so I have more to give others who I want to support overseas

2. I want to spend at least 15 minutes with Jesus every day, no matter if it’s worship, prayer, Bible reading or just sitting in His presence. I need that time, and 15 minutes is so minimal...

3. I want to be more thankful and less envious, practically I want to rejoice with those who can rejoice in the blessings God has given them and I want to rejoice in the blessings He has given me. (Which are many, contrary to my envious thought-process)

4. I want to spend at the most 1 hour on the Internet every day. That includes emails, research, and job searching. If I've only committed 15 minutes to Jesus, I don’t need 5 hours on the Internet... (This excludes Skype, since that’s the only way I can call my parents :P)

So, if you’re game, please help keep me accountable in this! :)