Ever read a devotional that seems like an annoying, folksy parable only to have it turn out to be your specific life's situation once revealed? Anyone?
*raises hand*
If you have been keeping up, I sing with my church's praise and worship team. Faithfully on Sundays but I had made a commitment to be there on Wednesdays and/or Fridays, too. Well, I started my acting class thinking that it would be for Mondays only, only to find out the first day of class that it was also on Wednesdays, too. Just like that, I committed to this class when weeks prior I had just committed that time to God.
This is a class I took just for fun but I really wanted to do it. So, long story, less long. I essentially reneged on the Lord. I have had all kinds of turmoil and upsets happening in my life since. I was so indignant, like, why Lord why? I am so like Job right now. Whine, whine, cry, why!?!
I read this devotional on yesterday by Pastor Tony Evans. In it a little boy was playing with his toy boat by a pond. The boat drifted to far from the boy. The father did not go into the pond to save the boat but instead took stones and tossed them into the water just beyond the boat. The stones created a disturbance in the water – little ripples that gradually pushed the boat back to shore.
After my week of Insanity and stressful work week, I finally got my car fixed. I was so excited I was like, I am going to church. Last minute, I decided again, I will go to class only to find out class was not scheduled that day. So, I head to church and I am singing when it hits me. This is where you should be. My class had become more important than my commitment that I had voluntarily made to God. It had become my idol.
It is not as though I was in the midst of some great sin, I was just a bit offshore. The forces surrounding my boat gradually brought me back to where I should have never left. In His presence.