Hi everyone, sorry I haven't posted anything these last 4 days, I was in Arkansas, yes I said Arkansas:-) But it's good to be back. So as I was reading chapter 21 of Proverbs and a sharp contrast stood out to me today. Solomon talks about two types of people, one who pursues righteousness and one who pursues pleasures/earthly things. Here's how Solomon puts it:
17 Whoever loves pleasure will become poor;
whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich.
21 Whoever pursues righteousness and love
finds life, prosperity[c] and honor.
After reading these two verses I want to be the one who pursues righteousness and love but I had to step back and ask myself, which one am I? I can honestly say that this is probably the biggest thing that the Lord has been working on me in this season of my life. In verse 17 this is someone who pursues pleasures and material things. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to want these types of things but we need to be careful about how much energy we put into getting these things and if we put these things in God's spot. One desire of my heart is to get married and have a family. I've always wanted this since I could remember. As I started getting older I started to add this unnecessary pressure on myself to make this happen. Once again I'm not saying that wanting to get married is a bad thing, but in my case I wanted this more then anything. I put my pursue of this before God and his plans for my life. I always felt that once I get married and all that good stuff then life would be great and everything would be great. But what I've found out in this season of my life is I don't need anything except God to make life great. All I want is to pursue righteousness and love, and by doing this I will find life, prosperity and honor. Even though those other things are good things they will never fully satisfy my hearts desire. Only Jesus can do that.
Remember I'm not telling you that you can't desire those things because I still desire those things. I'm just saying that we need to make sure our priorites are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and strength, pursue righteouness and love and let God take care of all that other stuff. Here's something to hold on to:
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.(Matt.6:33)
In this chapter of Matthew Jesus is telling us not to worry about the stresses of life because our heavenly father will take care of us as long as we keep our ends of the deal up.
So my prayer for us today is that we pursue righteousness and love and not the pleasures of this earth. I pray that our focus would be on God and that we would trust him with all our hopes, dreams, and our futures. I pray for strength and faith for us to continue to let God be God.
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