"WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"What rules your heart more than the love of Christ?" asked my good friend. Oh my goodness, I thought, nothing I hope. "I think, Bev, there is something that you want more than love." It was a good conversation between good friends. A challenge for me to think about what I was really saying and thinking and doing and living.

What do I want more than love? I have all of Christ's love and I can never ever lose that Love. So what is that I was communicating that I wanted more than Love and my friend could see it. What something more than drawing near to my good God could I want? I asked my Lord to show me and He did. He really did! And it is His Kindness that leads us to repentance! Romans 2:4.

Throughout my life I have wanted to be special. Wanted to be recognized. Wanted to find my worth not in God alone but in what I accomplished. A powerful ministry, a great marriage, great children. Good goals but was that my ruling passion? I attached myself to strong, powerful people like my husband and other successful people. It took suffering to see that I was an idolater. Attachaholic! God never intended for me to be dependent on anyone but Him. God never intended that I find my worth in anything else but Him. He alone can fill this empty heart of mine. And, the things I tried to fill it with didn't satisfy, for it was a broken cistern, Jeremiah 2:13--- and broken jugs don't hold Living Water. Just like the woman at the well...she didn't know she was thirsty says John 4:10..."if you knew Who it was that asks you for a drink," Jesus said to the woman--- you would have been all over Me and I would have given you Living Water! "What do you want?" asks Jesus.

"We deceive ourselves to believe we are living the Christian life, but we are following a Christianized version of the 'old way' ". It was a quote I heard at a conference I went to this summer. "What is your ruling passion? Is it for impact, vision, church growth, my goals OR is it to bring pleasure to the Heart of your God and that Christ be formed in you?" C.S. Lewis calls it "making little Christ's."

These thoughts came from my QT this morning as I read Deuteronomy 29 - 32. Open my mind to understand, my eyes to see, my ears to hear. May I remember what you did for me in my desert when my clothes never wore out nor the sandals on my feet---for 40 years. Deut. 29:5. That's some shoes! Some God!

And if there is anything in me that wants something more than the love of Christ, free me of that my dear Heavenly Father that I may only attach myself to you and You Alone! And if there is a "lie I am holding in my right hand" --- Isaiah 44:20 --- you, mighty God, will show even that to me. Just like you did to the mother of the sons of Zebedee in Matthew 20:20-28..."What do you want dear mother?" asked Jesus. And she replied that she wanted a special place for her sons. Jesus didn't blast the woman---He simply said that if you want to be great in God's kingdom, be a servant. Don't think that success is being aligned only with those who are powerful, those who are a success. Even when you have done anything to the least---you have done it to Me. There are no big people and little people in this Christian world. We are servants of the Most High.

On my way to San Antonio for the State Cross Country Championships. It took me 11 hours to get here, a 5-hour ride---LOL...I stopped at Sonic, Starbucks, Seven-Eleven, Braum's, Tex-Mex, and the Outlet Mall! And I listened to 6 DVD's in the car that so touched my soul!!!!

Britt runs three miles on Saturday morning about 12:30pm...pray for him. He has been injured this whole season and has just recently recovered from a pelvic injury. He won't be running at 100%. He would have had a great shot at All State but I'm just happy for him that he is willing to try to do his best playing without a full deck. That builds character in our teens. Life isn't all about winning, anyway. And I am grateful for a sixteen year old little fella that doesn't want the applause of men more than the attention of His Christ. Have a great weekend! See you in San Antonio!