So, I read this interesting Facebook status today that got me to thinking. It said something like - I am a church leader so I have to give God the best part of me and my day (I am paraphrasing). Of course my initial thought was - good for him. My second thought was - I am not sure he is right.
God is our everything and we are to cherish Him. To love the lord our God with ALL our hearts and with ALL our souls and with ALL our strength. But where do other things fit in? Does that mean that my family always gets leftovers. They get a lesser version of me? And I know the platitude - if you love God first, your family gets a better version of you. And I agree with that. BUT to give God my best means that everything else gets second position - or worse.
How does that make my family feel? Or worse.. what values statement am I making to my kids? I want to give the best part of my day to the things that God has given me to steward well. And those areas of my life where I am called to be the one who puts God's Peace on display - I wan them to see the best of me. And that raises another question... Where is the place I am NOT called to do that? So then, I have to always show the best of me. Or at least the truest version of me...
The connections are endless here. And I think it would be good to talk about it. I want to be the best follower of God that I can. I also want to be the best father and husband that I can. I also want to be the best neighbor and friend that I can be. I want to give everyone the best that I have.
Maybe the connection to giving God the "best part of my day" is faulty... Maybe the best is what we should strive for every moment of every day...
What do you think?
"In him we live and move and have our being" ... how can there be a separation? In fact, and now you will think I am a heretic, there is no existence apart from God -- none. Though the medieval (and satanic) doctrine of hell claims differently, there is no biblically sound argument for the existence of Hell, for an existence apart from God. (The consuming fire is in fact Gods presence and destruction is the choice to live outside of the laws of the universe which, eventually, God grants to those free agents which choose it. And that destruction is everlasting in the sense that this is never reversed, not in the sense that the act of destruction never ends.)
ReplyDeleteA large amount of Christian theology is in fact tradition that has been polluted, sometimes in very subtle ways, by darkness. But God comes alongside us, in the light and in the darkness, saying, "Fear thou not, for I am with you" and "This is the way, walk ye in it". He teaches us to distinguish between his voice and the voice of the enemy.
One of those wayward ideas is the supposed existence of the sacred and the secular, the spiritual and the non-spiritual. This kind of thinking leads to the comment you saw on facebook, which you correctly saw as wrong.
((I am leaving this comment as an anonymous which is unusual for me, but I thought doing that would focus on the ideas and not the personalities.))
So. The discussion on hell aside.... (maybe another post for another time) if I understand you right you are saying that the "best part, not best part" discussion is faulty at its core because it creates a false choice? I can see that. If in Him we live and move and have our being, then He gets all the parts and out job is to flow in His presence. Taking it a step further, if there is no existence apart from God, the we don't give Him any moments, they are all His. Whether we realize that or not is fairly insignificant to the overall discussion.
ReplyDeleteI like that idea a lot... I am thinking....