Loving God or the World?

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

 

In the above passage, when it comes to our true heart's allegiance, John cuts to the chase as Jesus did so many times during His earthly ministry.  He is saying something that we likely do not want to hear -- if we love the world and all that it has to offer, we will not and do not love God.  Recently this was brought home to me in an unusual way.  Firstly, I am thankful to say that God has blessed my life immeasurably in every possible way.  I lack for nothing.  I am a blessed Gentile child of God, and I experience the blessing promised to Abraham as a grafted-in child.  However, my husband and I have had a financial trial for a few years now that we can seem to do nothing about, even though we've prayed, and we've tried and tried to find a solution.  Until it lifts, we cannot move forward from where we are, barring a miracle of God, which we are praying and hoping for.  

 

One day not too long ago, I asked God very specific questions about it.  I especially wanted to know why it was taking so long to receive a breakthrough, and that we are stuck until something happens.  We cannot makes plan to travel, fix our house, or even pursue ministry ideas or anything else major without a miracle.  I did not receive an answer until the next day.  This answer was one of those, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8)  The next morning my Bible fell open to Joshua 10 where the sun stood still:

Jos 10:13  And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Jos 10:14  And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.

I read the whole chapter and a few more after that.  Joshua is a book about the children of Israel receiving the Promised Land that God had promised the descendants of Abraham.  It did not come easy. They had to fight and overcome the inhabitants in order to take the land!  But God literally gave them victory after victory in order to fulfill His promise to Abraham.  So where do I fit in to this?  As I was reading, it became crystal clear to me that God will stop at nothing to ensure that His children receive their Promised Land, or inheritance, as promised in His Word. He even made the sun stand still for Joshua!! So He assured me that yes, He will provide the breakthrough we have been praying for, but it will be in HIS timing and not ours.  Then He proceeded to impress on me that I needed to get back to my writing, and that nothing would happen until I committed myself to writing again!  This is a gift from God that I give as a gift back to Him and for HIS purposes!  I've known this for a long time now, yet I haven't been obeying, but doing a bunch of other things! So, the Promised Land and inheritance is ours, but in order to receive it, we must also obey Him and do what He’s asking us to do! 

Just to make sure that I got the message to do my writing again, a dear friend of mine was awake until 2:00 a.m. and the Lord impressed on her directly that writing is my gifting and that I am supposed to write!  She was to make sure and tell me this, and so she told me in church two days later!  And this is without me even talking to her much about my writing.  She had no idea that the Lord had already had me read Joshua as an answer to my questions to Him.  We both had goosebumps!

If you write or know a writer, you will understand how difficult writing can be because you have to be very focused and very disciplined. You have to put everything else aside, shut off your phone, and sometimes close your drapes and lock the door so you won't be disturbed. It greatly curtails your social life and any other kind of life you might want. Yet, it is something you must do because you have all these ideas or inspirations that need to be written down.  And so, for me, I will many times find something else to do so I avoid the discipline of writing.  I couldn't begin to count the times I have gently shooed a loved one out of the room when I've been in the middle of writing out a thought and couldn't be disturbed!  But this is no excuse.  If God gave me the natural ability to write, an understanding husband who supports me in it, the time to do it, etc, (and several years of education to do it well), then I must use this gift wholly for His purposes!

Going back to I John 2:15-17, the challenge for me has been to NOT look at what else I could be doing like the trips I could be taking, or how I'd like to add onto our house, or buy a swim spa or a boat to use on the massive lake just down our street!  Those are just momentary pleasures of this life that will not make much of a difference in anyone else's life.  They will certainly not add much to the Kingdom of God the way the writing can and does.  No. They may be added at a later time, and maybe not. It really doesn't matter.  What matters is that I love God and doing His work more than anything this world can give.  

So today if you find yourself in a similar situation and you just can’t understand why it is taking so long for your prayers to get answered, just remember that the real focus needs to be on loving God more than anything else this world has to offer.  May we focus on Him today and do whatever it is He has asked us to do.