Off the Beaten Path

Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

The challenges of life seem ever present, and as such it so often seems normal or right that addressing the challenges is the most appropriate action. We must change this or change that. We must react to discomfort and create comfort. We must war and impose our will so that we perceive ourselves as better or better off. That is the path of mankind for all of time and yet Christ has called us off the beaten path.

For me personally the past six months have been a good run. My most major and pressing financial issue is not solved, but God assurance and presence in it is more than adequate. And when it is not, He has given me a supportive spouse fully committed to the transition and lesson of it all. But the upcoming month is not so bright a future. I am paid once per month for work completed the prior month and therefore know that June is going to be ugly come pay day. 

In a moment of weakness I shared this impending challenge with someone and their retort was Our Father just needs to sell a few cows. This in reference to Psalms 50:10 and God having “the cattle on a thousand hills.” And yet I thought quietly that this person just doesn’t get it. They don’t get that God has me EXACTLY where He wants me. This place is not a place of need, it is a place of learning total dependence upon Him. I am not lacking in anything except finding the place where my priority is truly seeking first the kingdom of God.

All around me this lesson.. this message... is reinforced. Jim Spivey 3 times affirmed where God has me with his blog at http://rcdailyjournal.blogspot.com/

This morning Oswald Chambers hit the nail on the head… again. Of this passage Oswald says, “When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ‘. . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . .’ Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, ‘But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.’ The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.”

In the end it is not about the destination. One day, God willing, I will reach a place of being 100% debt free, but that is not what is important to the Father. What is important is the path. What will be asked of me that day is did I get there on the path of seeking His kingdom first, or did I get there on the more traveled path of human effort. And in it all somehow He is in control, somehow even though I “try” to seek His kingdom first He is the One keeping me on the path, the One showing me the path, the One Who in fact is the Path.