A Reminder

I love the Christmas season. I love buying gifts. I love twinkling lights. I love decorating the tree. I love being with my wild, crazy, and unique family. I love thinking on the birth of Christ at Christmas, no matter what time of year He was actually born. I love the hustle and bustle of being busier at work. I really do love it.

BUT...it is so easy to get caught up in the business of life, of doing and going and working, that I forget that I was made to "be". Like Mary of Bethany, who chose the good part, I was made to know God. I was made to sit and listen. I was made for a relationship with the Creator of the universe. I was made to worship, to love, to follow after Him. As I sat in the quiet this morning, worshiping and praying, I was reminded. David said it in Psalm 27.

Psalm 27:4
One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.

It is good to be busy, to enjoy it, to make money, to shop, to decorate and all the other things that come with every day life and the increased intensity of those things that come in December, BUT it is more important to be reminded that this is not the thing that makes life full. This is not what satisfies the human heart. This is not what I was made to do full speed ahead day after day after day. My satisfaction comes from the Living God. My satisfaction comes from knowing that I am loved by the One who created me. My satisfaction comes in knowing that I was made to know Him and to reveal His incredible, unconditional love to others.

Today, I am thankful for the reminder that life is not all about going and doing and buying and selling and running here and there...it is about so much more than all of that. There is One who is worthy of my time, my devotion. When I sit with Him in the quiet, He realigns my heart, my thinking, my purposes, and I am then able to face the world with His heart and His eyes. I can love with His heart, see with His perspective, and I can more successfully put the first commandment in first place. For only then, can I even consider the second greatest commandment. Jesus said in Matthew 22,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

So today, I start afresh with the reminder that He is first..always. He is my calling and my purpose. When I put Him first, everything else falls into place.