Monday, November 26, 2012

let's think a little...

I'm just gonna be honest with you.  I don't like to think.  There was a time in my life when I did.  I would pride myself on all my creative and intellectual thoughts.  But now, as a busy wife and mom, I don't think, I just do.  I don't have time to think.  I don't have energy to think.

But I'm realizing that thinking is not something I can let go of.  1 Peter 1:13 says, "Therefore, prepare your minds for action;" Ugh.  I think He means I need to think.

I was doing a Bible Study a while back and it had me read a few verses, and then it asked me a few questions about those verses, and that was it.  I searched through the curriculum looking for more.  You know, the part of the Bible Study where the author tells me what I just read in the Bible, and explains it to me, with lots of great Christian fluff and one liners thrown in there to make me feel good.  But it wasn't there.  What?!?  They actually wanted me to sit there and think about the words I read in the Bible?  No thank you.  I quit the Bible Study.

But this morning, I sat down to read James.  I read the first verse, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ..."  My brain had a thought.  I almost skipped over it, not wanting to engage, but I stopped, and prepared my mind for action.

James.  A SERVANT.  Of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.  What does it mean to be a servant?  Can that be said about me?  A servant is someone whose job is to serve their master.  They do everything that they are told to do.  And I'd even go as far to say that a good servant is someone who doesn't wait to be told what to do, but who looks around for things that need to be done and they just do it.  They take care of it.  They want to please their master.  Their every thought and action is based on what their master would want them to do.

Yes, I'd say I'm a servant.  But...who am I serving?  Who do I want to please?  Who is my every thought and action based on?

Me.  My kids.  My husband.

When my every thought and action is not engaged in the work that my Master has for me, I am not serving Him.  When I am not actively looking around for things to do to serve Him, I am not a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to be a servant today.  Not to myself.  Not to my family.  But to God.  The Lord Jesus Christ.

Think on THAT.