Spending.

I apologize, not only to my readers but to myself, that it has been ages since I have blogged. It is a discipline that, although difficult, is worth cultivating, and I feel I have struggled to achieve a daily discipline for blogging.

So today is quite a day for me. I have been forbidden to eat all day as I go to the gastroenterologist tomorrow for an upper and lower endoscopy. In layman's terms, I am going to the stomach doctor so they can put me out with anesthesia and then look up my butt and down my throat. Super fun, right? The best part is that as I type this I am in the midst of drinking 64 ounces of Berry Rain Gatorade filled with an entire bottle of Miralax. Woot woot! I get to spend my Monday night pooping out just about everything I've ever eaten. P.S. sorry to be graphic and/or offensive, there's just no other way to put it. I will literally be spending my night with my new bffl, the porcelain god himself.

So now that you have been informed of this loveliness, I digress onto my "contemplations" of the week...

I feel as if in my life, I've been going through the motions of each day, and maybe this sounds off, but I don't want my life to ever be reduced to merely living. I want my life to be purposeful. To possess great meaning. To encourage. To challenge. To transform.

I just finished reading through Hebrews and James, and was challenged a boatload. Hebrews 4:14-16 was a particular verse that stuck out to me..."Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. " These verses have been challenging to me in that my relationship with God should be so intimate that I may approach Him firsthand, at His very throne. He is a high priest so far above me, but He has lowered Himself to my level - OUR level - so that we may CONFIDENTLY come before Him with our requests and desires. And He just gives us more grace (James 4:6a).

Also, James 4:4-10 has both challenged and convicted me of areas of weakness in my life.
⁴ You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? ⁶ But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
   “God opposes the proud
   but shows favor to the humble.”
 ⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

So many times I have chosen and will choose myself and the world over God. I love gratifying my own desires. I am a friend to the world, A close friend of mine was just sharing with me how torn she feels at times between her own earthly wants and her desire to please God simultaneously. I'm sure all of us who know Jesus have been there a thousand times, at that exact state of ambivalence. But we need to submit to God, and we also need to have the DESIRE to submit to Him. A pastor once shared with me that "we worship what we desire." If my live, my daily living, is ascribing worth to money, then it is because I desire money. I want it. I crave it.
If my life, my daily living, is ascribing worth to Jesus - to honoring His name and making Him known, to emulating His beauty and His actions here on this earth - then it is because I desire Him. I want Him. I crave Him. HE is the one I want.

I challenge you, any reader out there, to think truly about what it is you worship. What or who it is that you are truly desiring. I know for me, I am selfish; my desire is to please my flesh with empty foolishness that will never satisfy. The Lord has been challenging me with the question, "Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?" (Isaiah 55:2). And it makes sense...

Why would I ever spend money on what is not bread, and labor on what does not satisfy?
I do every single day.