Chasing God

Life has so many distractions, many of them are wonderful like those special relationships and blessings God has put in our lives; a husband, children, family, friends even serving in ministry.  Others are attempts from the enemy of our soul to enslave us, by luring us away from the things that God wants and haves for us.  Sometimes those things seem so innocent at first, so "under our control".  Our desire to be entertained by things that don't uplift us really draws us further from the heart of God.  We chase those things for fun, or an escape from our everyday lives and those things often can a do consume us until we are left stagnant and not in the relationship our hearts truly desire to be in with God.   

 

This study "Chase" I came across yesterday morning and is truly an answer to prayer. In Session 1 Jennie touched on exactly what I was feeling and reminded me I am not alone.  That even David, a man after God’s own heart often chased other things.  The difference is that he ALWAYS ran back to God. 

 

I am taking Jennie’s challenge, and I have searched myself to find out what are the things I am chasing.  I am chasing my family, being a good wife and mother, keeping everyone's life together.  But that is so exhausting, and so I also end up chasing entertainment. I call it down time to reward me for being so "selfless" and taking care of others.  More often than not those entertainment moments are less than God glorifying.  There are a lot of things in the shows that I know aren’t pleasing to God, but I excuse it because.. that isn’t the part I am watching for.  I like the action and suspense, but the cursing and other stuff.. “well it is par for the course, I’ll ignore it.  I don’t take part in that sort of thing so it isn’t a big deal, right.” But now I’m reminded of David when he was sitting on that roof, just looking at that woman bathing when he was supposed to be off to war.  I’m sure he never thought he would do the things he did as a result of that action….jealousy, adultery, murder.

 

Philippians 4:8 says Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Proverbs 4 also teaches us to guard our heart (minds) in verse 23.  for everything we do flows from it.  What we let in our hearts is what we will ultimately chase.  Matthew 22:37 Jesus tells us to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."  If I do this I will be chasing God and there will be nothing in my heart that could keep me from His plan and purpose for my life.  I will be the woman that He has called me to be. I will be whole and complete, lacking nothing, able to serve my family and be used by God to perform His purpose in my life better than I ever could in my own strength.

 

I believe faith without action is dead, having God reveal and convict me and not changing something would be ignoring God, and I don’t want to do that…so I am going to stop watching TV shows that have content that is harmful to my walk with God and use that time to chase after Him and draw closer to his heart.