Have you ever noticed how things that were meant to be blessings (overflow) from God quickly become idols? ANYTHING can and often does become all consuming: food, entertainment, relationships, marriage, children, homeschooling. The list goes on.
We were created to worship, it’s hard wired into us and as we walk through our days, we decide from moment to moment what (or whom) we will worship.
I’ve noticed that when things start going sideways, it is most often directly connected to a shift in my heart toward worshiping someone or something other than God.
The Old Testament tells countless stories of the Israelites often and quickly displaced their worship to anything but God. It’s a story of ongoing unfaithfulness, one that I am all too familiar with and guilty of.
You see, I have watched God work in miraculous ways. I’ve seen His power displayed countless times, I’ve experienced His remarkable faithfulness and yet all too often I still wake up in the mornings with feelings of fear and a faithless heart.
There is something raw about our first morning thoughts and feelings, something revealing. As we come to consciousness, there is no time to distract ourselves, no time to divert our thoughts to anything, but the honest, crude, and unprocessed. What can conveniently remain buried throughout our busy days, stares us down as we lay under the covers, vulnerable.
We forget. Like the Israelites, we become distracted by the here and now. We desperately need to remember His love.
We aren’t saved because we DO, we are saved because of who we ARE, because of who HE IS. There isn’t one nano second that we earn anything, or a moment that we aren’t fully and completely covered by His great love for us.
He fights for us (2 Chron. 20:17)
He intercedes for us (Romans 8:34)
and it’s His perfect LOVE that casts out fear (I John 4:18)
But God. But HIS love.
It’s where I choose to shift my eyes.
Psalm 33:18:
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love.
(If you found this devotional encouraging, you may want to check out my devotional written just for moms. Unhurried Grace for a Mom’s Heart is available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon)