The other night on the way home from town, my young son bursts out, “Dad, I see God!” This caught my attention so slowing the van down I asked him, “Where do you see God?” Pressing his little nose to the window he told me that God was outside in the sky. He then, in a very matter of fact tone of voice said, “God is the brightest star, shinning brighter than everything.”
It always warms my heart when God uses kids to reinforce a truth about Himself. If only more people would understand that God wants and should be the brightest thing in our lives. Does He outshine everything else or is He lost in the confusion of a multitude of priorities just trying to be noticed by us, let alone anyone one else examining out lives?
Letting God outshine everything is a constant challenge in our daily lives. So how do we make sure God out shines everything in our lives so that it is not only obvious to us but also to anyone who looks at our lives? This means that God needs to be so important that no one and nothing else even comes close. For this to happen we need to do two things:
· 1st, we must work hard. The Scripture says that our spiritual lives should be like those of an athlete who is training to win a completion. Such an athlete literally makes their training their life, everything they do is focused on training. Can we as follower of Jesus say that our days and lives are all about God, that He is the focus or motive behind why we do what we do?
· 2nd, we must guard or protect our relationship with God. When people have something of great value they to go extreme measures to protect that item. The greater the value the greater the efforts to protect it. Can we say this about God in our lives? So often we take following God so casually that literally anything will distract us from guarding our time with Him. A phone call or text, something on TV, a book, a situation at work, our health, etc.. We could list just about anything that comes to mind. Usually that is exactly the problem, anything that come to mind distracts us from showing how much we value God. To guard against this takes effort, discipline, and commitment. However, the sacrifice of living like this is nothing compared to the prize of we win of “seeing God in our lives and having other see God shining brightly in our lives.”
