What do you want?!

Tonight I spent an hour praying for our local YoungLife ministry. And I couldn't help but notice in some of the more specific prayer requests for individuals that a lot of them wanted to spend more time with Christ. This made me think that a lot of times, this is a very popular request among believers. 

Then I thought of how often you hear the phrase, 'you make time for what you want...'

   And I do believe that that is true. I think of all the high school boys (and even grown boys!) who will spend hours a day, or stay up all night sometimes just playing video games. Or people like me who love television and will stay up until 2 am no matter how tired you are to watch a favorite tv show! Or we make time to hang out with friends...etc...but how often do we ourselves MAKE time to spend with Christ?! 

Are we willing to sacrifice a few minutes of sleep to spend time with Him? Are we willing to sacrifice one episode a day? Are we willing to sacrifice meeting up w a friend to spend time w Jesus?...the list could go on. 

Don't get me wrongs, none of these things are wrong. I just find it interesting that what seems to be the most common prayer request is to spend more time with Christ...

And my thought is.....maybe the prayer request shouldn't be to spend more time with Christ but instead, to, WANT Christ more. To long for Him. To desire Him above anything else in our lives that can distract us from Him. To want Him so much, that it moves us to action. 

So I ask, what do you want? 

God's blessings in endurance

This morning I wasn't really motivated to get out of bed. The only thing that seemed to really excite me was the idea of eating breakfast! But as I lay there, I started to think about all the things that have been heavy on my heart and mind this week and I started to worry a bit. So, for like the 2nd time this summer I got up and decided to go on a long walk without my music and just talk to God. Walking has been rather difficult for me this summer because I fell and hurt my foot/ankle at the beginning of the summer and I also get really bad shin splints so those 2 things have held me back a lot, but I asked God to bless this walk and He did!

  My walk was really refreshing, in many aspects. And towards the end I started thinking of this...

There were many blessings on my walk. One being the prayer time and just conversation with my LORD, saying hello to people on the street, my legs not killing me!, my best friend shouting at me through their window, baby animals....

  I took a route that if I wanted to, I could have taken so many different short cuts to make the walk a lot shorter than it was. And if i didnt make the decision to just keep walking, I would have missed out on quite a few of those blessings. And I think we can easily apply that to our spiritual lives. 

When we are walking with Jesus sometimes life becomes hard and we want to take the easy road, the shortcut. We just can't seem to have enough perseverance or endurance, or fear and worry start to overwhelm us of even hurt and pain...etc. When we allow ourselves to not endure, or to be hindered we miss out on blessings from God, when we take those shortcuts, when we don't endure the whole way. The endurance through the difficulty and the pain and discontentment reap blessings when we just persevere and keep our eyes on the prize (Jesus Christ) rather than our eyes on what is making us want to give up or slow down or take a shorter route (different road than intended just to be done quicker). 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary orfainthearted."    Hebrews 12-1-3