Listen

God has gotten my attention over the past 4 days.

It came first via the Bible study I am going through right now on Solomon.

"Are there areas in your life where you are not walking in complete obedience?"

Solomon had most of his life pretty well figured out. He was the one who asked for wisdom instead of money or riches or power... This pleased God, and God gave him incredible wisdom. Along with money, riches, and power. But Solomon had a problem. He had a weak spot. His wives. Yes, plural, Solomon had many, many, many wives. Enough to keep him incredibly busy.
The sheer number of wives wasn't his only problem though, the problem was that he was making political marriages and marrying women that God had commanded them not to. This led to his downfall of worshiping in pagan temples.

I had no answer to the question when I read it first.. I left it blank to come back to after thinking about it on my drive home.

Second was through a podcast I was listening to on my way home. On the most boring stretch of road on the whole trip, I really tuned into what I was hearing, because the other alternative was to zone out and fall asleep. I swear that right before the podcast started I heard Him..


"Are you listening, child?"

The Pastor was talking about the different areas of obedience and surrender to God. He started listing off all of the areas in life that Christians will or could have problems with, and encouraged the listeners to rate themselves on each topic. 0 being no problem with it ever, 10 being that you struggle with it constantly.

He started listing things off. Kindness, fairness, patience, honesty, integrity, generosity, Love, clean speech, holiness, gentleness, purity in thought... As he started going through them, I started flinching at one here, one there.

"Ok God, I get it."

"Do you really?"

I realized, I don't really "get" it.

We won't ever really "get" it.

We are not God, and can never be perfect. But we can strive to serve Him and seek after Him with our whole being, asking Him to help us in the areas where we rate only a sad 9 or 10. If we come to Him with an attitude of true repentance, without making excuses and complaining, and if we are truly sincere about our desire to change, He will help us to change. I found my answer to that question in the Solomon study. I came up with three major areas where I am in desperate need of His help to overcome my selfishness and pursue Him.

He gives us the power to overcome temptation - if we take advantage of it. I don't believe that is something we can do without thinking about it. It must be something that we actively do. A choice to pursue Him and flee from evil.... Day. By. Day.