The Important Things

As I watched Pastor Doug’s message this week, I thought to myself, “Which one of these do I need to work on?” God must have gotten a kick out of that. I can just see Him rolling around on the floor of heaven laughing His butt off as that question went through my mind. Which one? Good one! Like there is only one that could use some work in my life. I can be quite arrogant from time to time. Add that to the list of things I need to work on in my life. 

Let’s look at the list of things that are important to Jesus from Pastor Doug’s message again…

1 - Act so that people will praise God. 

What does this look like in my life? What good deeds have I done today or even this week? Am I more comfortable sharing my beliefs with others than I am doing good deeds for others? Do I share my beliefs more often than I do good deeds? It was harder than I would like to admit for me to think of a good deed that I have done in the past couple of days. Am I lacking here or do I struggle to recognize some of the things that I do as good deeds? This is the first thing from Pastor Doug’s sermon that I decided I need to take to God and ask about.

2 - Seek to restore broken relationships.

Yeah…I definitely struggle with the “seeking” part of this one. I tend to take the “there is nothing I can do about someone being upset with me because that is their issue not mine” stance on this one. I can apologize, and I do when I know I have upset someone or feel like I may have. Telling myself that there is nothing I can do about the way they feel about me makes me feel better about my lack of seeking restoration, I think. It takes the responsibility off of me in my mind, which means the broken relationship is not my fault. Lord, I still have so much to learn…

3 - Turn the other cheek.

My mind is a scary scary place. Some of the ways I have thought about retaliating when someone has wronged me are quite frightening. Now, I do not actually act on those retaliation thoughts, but I don’t think that really matters. I still had the thought. I still sat and stewed on what was done to me and how vengeance could be mine. 

I think the part of this that I struggle with even more is the second part about going the extra mile. When I am made to do a task that I do not want to do, I find myself only doing the bare minimum of what is required of me. What’s worse is that I do the bare minimum from a very passive aggressive posture. I’m telling you, God has His hands full with me. 

4 - Love your enemies. 

I am pretty good at saying I love my enemies. I am not as good at actually loving them. I say that I love them all day long, but I don’t know that I have ever acted on those words. I have prayed for my enemies, but what is my posture when I pray for them? Am I praying from a place of love or pride? Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. I will add this to the list of things to take before the Lord too, I guess. 

5 - Forgive those who do you wrong.

This one is a little tough. I have trust issues. I don’t trust a whole lot of people. It takes me a long time to actually trust people, and once that trust is broken, it is rare that it ever gets built back. In fact, I can’t think of one time it has happened. Forgiveness happens in baby steps for me. It’s like eating an elephant…one bite at a time. Another problem is that once I finally get the forgiveness taken care of, I have a hard time forgetting. Every time I remember the incident, it feels like I am taking three steps backwards. It is definitely a process; a process that God has to be involved in.

6 - Fix yourself before you fix someone else.

I am a southern girl, and I can “bless your heart” someone with the best of them. It is super easy to see the flaws in other people isn’t it? Especially when those people are inconveniencing me or frustrating me or driving slow in the left lane in front of me when I have to be somewhere. It is harder to look at my own flaws in the mirror. It is harder for me to see that I, once again, failed to get up early enough to get where I need to go on time in spite of any traffic I may run into. It is so much easier to lay out a plan to fix other people then it is to act out a plan to fix me. The plan to fix me requires me to put in the work, and that sounds exhausting. 

7 - Have a transformational belief. 

In my opinion, this one is the key. I can agree with all of the statements above, but if I am not willing to be obedient to Jesus and yield to His instructions to me, what good is it? Believing that the above statements are important is not enough. I have to be willing to change me. I have to be willing to do the work that Jesus asks me to do in order to become more like Him. I have to be willing to submit to His authority and wisdom on this. I have to live the way He asks me to live. I have to be open to the idea that I am wrong about some things and the idea that there are some things about me that need to change, and then actually change them. I have to allow Jesus to push me out of my comfort zone from time to time. I have to allow Him to make me uncomfortable with His truth every now and then. This is the only way to grow. There is no growth without transformation. If the goal is to become more and more like Jesus, I have to be okay with lots and lots of change within me, which makes this one the most important and the hardest.