Follow up to "The Question"

If you're wondering what question I'm talking about check out the blog from September 18th and if you have time, read the comments. I had asked if you guys thought it was possible to really love God first and most and your responses were so encouraging to me. Not because I don't think it's possible (I do) but because I had begun to think that most Christians don't think it's possible or even important anymore. We are such an idolatrous nation because we have so much and it all tends to pull our affections away from God until we can't even see Him anymore. We obsess about our money and our stuff and our relationships instead of obsessing about the only One who actually deserves that much of our attention. I can't help but think of what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3 and it scares me because it sounds like He's talking to us.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in. For sharing your thoughts and your experiences and for being honest about your own struggles and doubts when it comes to loving Jesus more than anything else. What I heard over and over in your comments was that it's hard...so hard, but definitely possible because our God isn't out to frustrate or tease us, so if He commands us to do something, then it's possible...but only with His help. And if He made it the first and most important commandment, it's because it's the very best thing for us. I know from experience that when Jesus is my greatest treasure, all of life is better, easier... brighter. There's a peace and joy that follows me wherever I go and nothing seems too big or too scary.

Some of you said you don't think it's possible to love God with everything or that only the great ones achieve it. I want to encourage you to keep fighting for it. There are no "great ones" selected by God to love Him most, He offers it freely to all of us. There are just those who take Him up on it and those who don't. Those who fight to hand over everything we love and trust Him with the outcome, and those who cling desperately to their stuff or their people, not trusting what He'll do with them. I think that might be the biggest obstacle in this battle. My friend Adisyn once said her biggest fear was that if she trusted God with her life He would "screw her over" and I think everyone in the room nodded in agreement. We seem to have this idea that He's out to break us or ruin us, so as long as we don't make eye contact and we keep a death grip on the stuff we love, then things will work out better. The truth is that everything in this world disappoints eventually. Every relationship ends badly, because even in the best of situations one of you will die first and it's going to be miserable. Every thing we own will end up in the junk pile or destroyed. So if God is the only thing that doesn't disappoint, then we're fools to give our hearts to anyone or anything other than Him.

I know I'm not there yet. I don't think I love Him with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength but I do know that I love Him more than I did last year, and the year before that, and way more than I did 10 years ago. Right now I think I can honestly say I love Him more than anyone or anything else in my life, and I've never felt so free. So each day I pray that God will help me lay down my life and follow Him. I pray that I look more and more like Him and less and less like me, and that He helps me to do all that He's commanded. The greatest, fullest life is the one lived by God's rules, not my own, so I pray, trusting that "with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)