What Are You Seeking First?
When I was first learning to walk with the Lord, I struggled to maintain a good connection with Him.
Life and the things in it kept getting in the way.
Kids, work, laundry, even church commitments consumed me.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying.
I was.
It’s that there was just so much going on that I felt like I was drowning.
Then I saw this verse:
33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33 NIV
It really got my attention, but it took a while for me to understand it.
I finally realized that I was seeking the kingdom, and the Father, second.
Yes I was praying and studying – a lot.
But I was cramming it into whatever spare time I had.
Reading a bit here and there.
Most of my prayers were, “:please help me to get to work on time,”, as I ran out the door, breakfast in one hand, a to-do list in the other.
I would pray and go over my church’s prayer list while washing dishes.
Even my quiet times were overshadowed by my long list of to-dos and the struggles of the day.
Then one day the Lord showed me it was because I was doing it backwards.
Instead of reaching out through all the pressures and demands of life to try to reach Him, I needed to set all of that down, step aside from them, and just get alone with God.
No agenda.
No prayer list.
Just one-on-one time with Him, sitting in His presence and soaking up His love.
Just the two of us, to get me back on the path.
Standing with Him as I looked at my life and began to focus on it from His perspective, I realized that I had things a bit askew.