So lately I have been really trying to dive into a deeper relationship with God. It has not been an easy journey, and I find myself, often, in the crux of pursuing my own ambitions and forgetting God. I think that's one of the reasons I liked how the minister at my church body described what going to church is.
As a short recap he explained that many churches will call their Sunday morning service a worship service, but the reality is that we worship God with our lives. I know a lot of people in my life who dont go to church and say that they can worship God no matter where they are. And they're absolutely right! But seeing this different perspective on church services as something other that "worship" just really spoke to me. He said that we meet to encounter God and it helps to refocus us for the coming week.
Can I just say that I love that! What an absolutely refreshing view on why it is so important to be a part of a church body! We might be able to worship God no matter where we are, but that intentional community with the church body where you encounter God to refocus yourself on Him is just something else entirely. I can not even express how much I love that perspective.
Anyway, outside the point other than to express that I need it.... I need it! Because focusing on God all of the time is not easy. Getting distracted is easy. It is so so easy. And I'm very thankful for the little community I have at Life Bridge.
Ive been doing some reflecting on stuff recently. Im a part of a facebook group that is doing a challenge called Break the Cycle. And so far is has just been so real. It has been affirmation and conviction and learning and I really appreciate what is being taught. I was watching a seminar the other day (I cannot watch live because i'm at work, so I think it might have been Tuesday morning seminar that I watched later, but I cant remember.) Anyway, the message the other day was about Breaking the cycle of money mismanagement, and God knows this is an area where I have been trying very hard to improve myself in. There was something said by one of the speakers that just kind of resonated with me.
I don't remember the exact wording used and I really wish now that I had written it down, because it was really good. but the concept was along the lines of how we can be so undisciplined "I don't have enough anyway so what does it matter if I splurge now" kind of thing. It's the idea that we don't deny ourselves anything but are given to every whim and the profound effect that this has on us in every area of our lives.
I have seen a sobering example of it in one of my coworkers life (and that in turn has helped me identify it in my own life and has served as a pretty good warning). With her money, she's always broke, vocationally and she's on the verge of losing her job because she used up all of her PTO two weeks into January. I even see the relational dysfunction when I talk to her because she does not deny herself "pleasure" in any form be it by the use of alcohol or sex or otherwise. The reality of it is sobering and to be completely transparent, it scares the hell out of me.
It's got me thinking hard about my life and where I give into my whims. Even just things that might be silly as choosing to play a game on my phone over washing the dishes in my sink. I see the paths I could be walking down by succumbing to the "pleasures of sin". I wish I knew how to more clearly articulate, but I'm pressed for time and I got to get going to work. Maybe I'll delve into it a little more later, or just personally.
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