You know how you just never think that you’ll be that girl. The girl that has a hard time getting alone with the Lord. The girl who spends more time in the Dunkin or Starbucks drive thru than she does reading the word. The one who can’t connect to the Lord in an instant so she gets distracted and forgets all about it. Especially after everything I’ve been through these past few years, I never thought I’d be that girl.
Yet here I am, at 11pm on a Saturday night praying to hear His voice. Praying that I’ll feel that tangible touch from the Lord and wondering what I’ve done to plug my ears so He sounds muffled and far away. Then He speaks and speaks clearly in a way that some would say is harsh. So I pass it on, because I write these blogs to share my heart, my thoughts, and to preach just as much to myself as I do to anyone else who will listen. He’s hard with me because I need Him to be. Sometimes I wonder if He preaches to me through me because it’s the only way I’d listen. “It’s you Ash, not me.”
I look over to the couch where Nash fell asleep. I don’t want to carry him to bed. I’m not ready to say goodnight. I just want to stare at him a little longer. I want to memorize his little face before he grows another inch. I don’t want to forget this moment as it turns into a memory. Then the Lord reminds me that He stares at me that same way. At all of us. With a love that burns so deep, one we can’t even comprehend if we tried. We should try but we don’t.
When you love someone, you want to spend as much time with them as possible. I never get sick of my children. Annoyed, or irritated sometimes at their behavior, but never sick of them to the point that I never want to see them again. I never turn my face away from them. I never deny them hugs or kisses. Yet if they don’t want to be around me, I don’t force them. I don’t hold them against their will and I don’t coerce them into spending time with me. I’m so blessed when they want to spend time with me but I can’t force them. In a similar way, the Lord can’t force us to make Him a priority. It’s up to us.
Now think about these questions for a moment. How much greater is our Father in Heaven? How much more does he wait for us to come to Him? How happy does He get when we talk with Him, and how excited does He get when we actually listen to His advice?
When you’ve been in the presence of the Lord and you’ve actually felt it. When you feel that overwhelming peace, love, joy, you think to yourself how do people turn their backs on this? How do they not want this? What I’ve come to learn over the last few weeks or so, has been the idea, that it’s not that people don’t want the presence of the Lord. It’s that they value their comfort and routines more than they value His presence. It’s not a want or don’t want issue, it’s a value or don’t value one.
How many times have we scrolled through Facebook, reading arguments between random people we don’t even know, and bam there goes a half an hour. How often do we check our work email and bam another hour gone. We do the laundry, we wash the dishes, we cook, we clean, we grocery shop, but do we even read our Bibles? I know I’m not the only one.
Maybe we even put our audio Bible on, playing it for hours to get some word in our lives but we are distracted by this and by that. We start in Mark and the next thing we know all the chores are done and the Bible app is playing on Hebrews and we have no clue how it got there.
We value our tv shows, our gossip, our coffee, our meals, our pets, our bon fires, our children and even our flesh more than we value the presence of the Lord.
It’s time for the tables to flip.
It’s time to know the Lord better than we know our coffee order. It’s time to know the Lord better than we know our tv. It’s time to know the Lord better than we know our jobs, our friends and even our families. It’s time to know the Lord better than we know what’s on the news.
Because in the end, it’s you and Him.
It’s time to Love the Lord more than we love complacency. It’s time to serve the Lord more than we serve our employers. It’s time to gratify our Spirit more than we gratify our flesh. It’s time to take it up a notch. It’s time to preach the hard messages. It’s time to turn up the heat before we burn for all eternity.
It’s time to love the Lord.
Deuteronomy 6:5 - And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
John 14:21 - He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Deuteronomy 7:9 - Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;
John 14:15 - If ye love me, keep my commandments.
1 John 4:19 - We love him, because he first loved us.
Matthew 6:24 - No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Psalms 16:11 - Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
1 Corinthians 10:14 - Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
John 14:26 - But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 16:13 - Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
1 Corinthians 2:10 - But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Acts 2:38 - Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Acts 2:33 - Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
Galatians 1:12 - For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:19 - What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
John 15:15 - Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you
Matthew 7:21-23
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
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