Happy Sunday y’all!
I hope you all are having a wonderfully relaxing day with family and friends today! Just a quick update before I jump into our second to last chapter in our book, Luvy passed his prospectus with flying colors!!
I am so incredibly proud of him!! All of his hard work is paying off. From here, he just has to conduct interviews for his research and complete the dissertation. It will be a ton of work, but he is on the downhill slope!! Thanks to everyone for your prayers!
Okay, so we only have 2 chapters left! I hope you all are enjoying this book.
Chapter 4
Seek First
Marian discusses in this chapter about how we are to seek God first. This can be such a hard thing in today’s society!! Marian speaks so much truth when she talks about how we as women love a schedule. Isn’t that true??
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We love having all our plans made and ready. The problem is when things don’t go according to our “plan”. I am such a mess when things don’t go according to my plans. I love having a plan. Having plans aren’t necessarily a bad thing, the problem is when we put our plans in front of God.
In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you”.
I’m certain all of us are guilty of getting our order out of whack. We are to seek or pursue or chase with intensity God first. He should be our primary focus and goal. We should be passionately pursuing God’s agenda and His will for our lives instead of our agenda. Whoops. GUILTY!
We should place God first and his agenda first and let Him take care of the rest. Easier said than done though, right??
It is so easy to seek first our agenda, glorify our own name, pursue our own happiness, and go after empty possessions that in the end will never make us feel complete. God created us for Himself, and anthing that we try to put in His place will not make us content. Our souls long for God… nothing else.
John Piper wrote:
No thing can satisfy the soul. The soul was made it stand in awe of the Person- the only Person worthy of awe. We seek first King Jesus and his kingdom because he is the only one who can sustain the pressure to exist on the throne of our hearts, and in seeking him, we find all that we truly desire.
Marian reminds us that when we seek God first, we find our purpose, destiny, and we find life how it is meant to be experienced: full, rich, abundant, blessed, and overflowing.
So, what should our agenda be if we are to live out God’s agenda for our lives??
This can be found in the 2 “Great commandents” in Matthew 22: 37-40:
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37-40 ESV)
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To sum it up… we are to love God and love other people. As Marian puts it, we are to “know Jesus and make him known”.
To do this, we don’t have to become Sunday School teachers, preachers, or evangelists… although those are all good things! We are to use our gifts, abilities, passions, personality, and life experiences to serve God. To do this though, we must be willing to serve! That is how we truly find how God can use us!
Does this mean that the things on your “list” will no longer matter to you?? No. Is it still hard? Yes. However, we are to use this as an opportunity for growth. If you are single and want to be married, or married but no children yet, embrace this time. Use it to serve God. We can all choose our prospective. We can either see life as empty and unfulfilled and in return be dissatisfied and frustrated, or we can see it as an opportunity!
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m tired of being unsatisfied and disappointed in not getting my “list”! Isn’t it about time we seek God first and allow him to take care of the “List”??
Does anything resonate with you all in this chapter?
What are some of your gifts, passions, and abilities that you can use to serve and love God and others?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
What resonates the most with me is seek god first. I think I get caught up with as you said ‘the plan’ and then get hung up when I go away from it. I forget the greater love of god and what he has in store for me, not the petty little lists that are created. IT is hard to give over all that trust of our plan in life but it is worth it.
It is so hard to trust and hand over our plan, but you said it perfectly… it is worth it!
Brittany, I look forward to reading your post every Sunday..Even though it’s my day to unplug, your blog is an exception
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What really resonated with me was the part when you “…embrace this time. Use it to serve God.” As of late, I’m so focused on planning and getting ready for the future – school, new job, a baby that I don’t even have…- that I’m oblivious to the things God’s laying down before me right this moment. I say with my words that I put God first in everything I do, but my actions don’t reflect that. I’m running around like a crazy woman all the time probably because I’m not surrendering and letting God take care of my list. IT’s ok if things don’t go as planned..that’s life.
awww thanks Min!! I feel the same way… I feel like a lot of the time my life is lip service to God. I need to put actions behind those words!
This is the first I’ve heard of this book but I might have to pick it up! It sounds like it would be really inspiring and I can’t wait to get into it now!
It is awesome! Totally worth it!
Tell Luvy Congratulations! Hope y’all did something for celebration
Thanks girl!! We did celebrate! We grilled out salmon and hung out all evening together!
I’m a planner too, so I have to remember to let go sometimes and let God do his thing
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Amen sister!!