This is a journal entry from today:
God, I feel like I have all these desires that i don’t fulfill. I want to order my finances, work out and eat healthy, order my spiritual life, journal often, write creatively and academically, and read many, many books. Not to mention find a second job, have a healthy social life, and treat my girlfriend well.
Then I asked God to comment on my desires and inability to fulfill them. His response:
Seek ME FIRST and all these things shall be added unto you.
Oh. I thought that was just referring to all the bad things on earth that we can seek. I didn’t think you meant to seek you before even all the good disciplines and practices that are a part of the healthy Christian walk? But of course I had bought into the lie. The lie that it was up to me to get my ducks in a row. The lie that God could not do through me the things that most people would argue come from putting your “shoulder to the grindstone.” JUST STOP. and talk to Jesus. He wants you to live the disciplined, fulfilled life, but He wants that life to develop out of a humble intimacy with Him. How does this work? When you wake up, ask Him what He has for you today. Spend time with Him and in His word. Just exist in His presence for a little while. It might feel awkward at first… but He is there and will meet you. Soon these disciplines will become the desire of your heart from a place of knowledge and identity in Christ, instead of an attempt to create the life you think you should live. God, and His kingdom, first.