Originally posted on Facebook 9/3/2019
The last week hit us hard for an array of reasons, but God met me in a powerful way at YWAM Richmond, VA worship time this morning.
Maybe it started as they sang these words:
“I will seek first your Kingdom/
I will seek first your righteousness/
Everything I need you will provide for me/
My heart is to seek first your Kingdom.”
God has been teaching me how to live this, but the past week reminded me that it’s so much more than I know. Even when we’ve willingly thrown our lives into the path of risk and ridicule to seek God, my humanity still crumbles in hard moments; I was hit with the reality that I am still seeking something — comfort, security, peace of mind — before God.
God is still not enough for me.
As we sang, God led me to celebrate the gift of seeking Him before all else, and the assured future it carries. At once, the worship leader paused and said he felt like God was saying for us all to take a posture of rest — as though we were sitting by a lake rather than before our hectic futures. I felt the nudge to send Becca a text about that, along with “Be still and know that I am God.” She replied that she had just read that verse in her devotional.
The base director later felt we should take a posture of vulnerability, and in small groups we opened up and prayed for each other. Things that had been weighing heavily on me all morning were put into the light, and I was reminded of another song we sang, “I can feel you lifting off the weight of the world.” Later conversations that morning brought more burdens into the light, and I felt a lightening. Put another way, it was clear the burdens only remain because I keep holding them, and because I’m seeking and expecting things outside of God.
And through all of it, one truth wove itself through seemingly unconnected moments: It’s all about God, not us. It’s all about God’s glory, not our comfort/justice/security/etc.
We’ve stripped “Seek first the Kingdom” of both its intensity and power.
This season my family is in isn’t about a training, or what we’ll be doing in missions, or how we’ll pay for this or that; this season is about God revealing Himself, and all else is supplemental to that.
My responsibility is to willingly step into that lesson.
This morning, a friend had simply posted “Luke 14:25-34” . Intrigued, I looked it up. It is another passage that has been softened and diminished, but Jesus doesn’t mince words:
“Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”
It’s not a threat. He’s just being honest that it won’t work. There is only one way to Him, and holding onto anything means He can’t be your everything.
So let people question my integrity. Let sickness try to knock me out of commission. Let random issues keep popping up to fill my already full plate. Let deep wounds be jabbed. Let us have to step forward with huge question marks around our home and funds. Because I serve a God who goes ahead of me, who knows me, and who knows all the stuff I’m worried about will turn to dust, and His love will remain.
“I will seek first your Kingdom/
I will seek first your righteousness/
Everything I need you will provide for me/
My heart is to seek first your Kingdom.”
~~~
Read more at www.wheredidyouseeGod.com/writings
CodyArt RVA 