The Motions...

This might hurt, it's not safe, but I know that I've gotta make a change. I don't care if I break, at least I'll be feeling something. Just OK is not enough, help me fight through the nothingness of life. No regrets, not this time, I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind. Let Your love make me whole, I think I'm finally feeling something. Just OK is not enough, help me fight through the nothingness of this life. I don't wanna go through the motions. I don't wanna go one more day without Your all consuming passion inside of me. I don't wanna spend my whole life asking, "What if I had given everything instead of going through the motions?" Take me all the way cuz I don't wanna go through the motions. Take me all the way, I know I'm finally feeling something real. I don't wanna go through the motions.
--Matthew West, "The Motions."

This song is my prayer in the middle of this night of sleep I'm giving up to write this... you'll understand why I would do this when you get to the end...

"You place defiled food on my altar. But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor!! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?' says the LORD Almighty."
--Malachi 1:7-8

So reading Malachi 1, I started to wonder how it is that this applies to us nowadays. It's all about God not being happy with His people for offering improper animal and food sacrifices. We don't sacrifice animals or food because Jesus was our perfect Sacrifice, so what are we supposed to learn about God from reading about sacrificing animals? And then I see what He says in Ch.1 v.7-8. That's where attitude becomes clear. These people were instructed specifically about what's an appropriate sacrifice and what isn't, they knew what God wanted and what He didn't, but they stopped caring. They seemed to lose the importance of it and not even realize it. They were so caught up in their lives that they didn't even seem to understand how complacent they'd become about serving God the way He personally asked them to. They were just going through the motions. Just those two verses so perfectly paint this picture, in a way only the Word of God can, of this attitude they had about worshipping God and following His commands. He asked them to give Him their first and their best, which was their most valuable, as a way of placing Him above all else in their lives because that's what He deserves. But their value started to migrate elsewhere. They looked at the sacrifices they were supposed to offer and just kinda said, "Here, we don't need this one, so just use it for a sacrifice. There, that's good enough, now let me get back to my life." He points out in v.8 that they'd never think of offering the governor such imperfection... so why is it OK to offer God, the only Holy, almighty, all-powerful Creator of the heavens and the earth, such imperfection? When did they start caring more about something/someone else than God?

Now I gotta stop and think... if we don't offer animal and food sacrifices, then what does that have to do with us? God does ask us for sacrifices. Think about it. It isn't animals or food He asks us to give Him, but rather our time. This could also be about the tithe, which is a clear commandment through the Old and New Testaments, but I think this is about what God asks of us on a day-to-day basis. He asks us to give Him our time in prayer, praise and worship, study of His Holy Word, and going to church. He asks us to take the best of our time and give it to Him. Do we? Ok, now tell me the truth. How often do we set so many other things before Him in our own hierarchy of life-related importance, thinking they're more "deserving" of our time in our own minds, that we end up giving God what's left of it rather than what's best of it? What have we set before Him as if it's more deserving of our time? Jobs? Classes? Hobbies? People... including your own self? Fill in the blank: "I can't pray/praise and worship/read the Bible/go to church because I have to __________." What do you write in that blank? What if we told our boss, our teacher, our "peeps," that we had no time for them, that something or someone else was more important? Do we immediately worry that they'll get mad at us, reject us, think less of us, punish us in whatever ways they're capable of, like firing, giving a failing grade, not wanting to hang out with us anymore? Do we think of the slim chance of these "consequences" even happening at all as being more foreboding and portentous than living in disobedience to God?

Let me tell you what He said to me about this one night in a Wednesday night church service. As I was listening to Pastor Janet teach about the church of Epehsus in Revelation 2, she said that the problem with them was that they'd lost their first love, which was their love for God above all. She said that the #1 love killer is not spending time with the one you love, so if we love God and we want to keep that love alive, we need to spend time with Him. She said, "It used to be... 'What do you want me to do, Lord? Your will.' But now you're like, 'Uhh... I gotta go do this, and then I'll see you in about a minute, Lord. Let me take care of this first.' He doesn't become the focal point of your life." As she was talking about this, a ridiculous amount of things I'd been focusing on above Him started running wildly through my brain... and then He said to me loud and clear, "That's why you've been by yourself lately. I'll go to drastic measures to get you back because I love you that much. Don't forget you're Mine first before you're theirs." I had to really try hard not to need a Kleenex in the middle of a seemingly random point in the message because just those 3 sentences from God suddenly showed me just how much He really does love me... that He would go so far as to rearrange my life just so that I'd find myself with absolutely nothing else to do but spend time with Him because He missed me... me!!... and that I forgot that, giving up that precious time to so many other things far less important. From there on out, I told myself... rather demanded and commanded myself... that I would fix this.

And I must digress for a minute to tell on myself right now. I gotta confess I just now did something stupid that falls right into this category. While praying earlier, God specifically directed me to Malachi and told me to read it carefully and write what I get out of it... so here I am, studying Malachi and what it's supposed to mean to us today, and I spotted something so stupid on TV, Jimmy Fallon playing a game called "Wheel of Carpet Samples," that I found myself stopping to watch out of sheer morbid curiosity. Now why was that OK for me to do? Why would I think it was OK to set aside the Word of God... especially something specific He asked me to do with it right now... to watch something so pointless and goofy? It wasn't. I shouldn't have done that. I put curiosity ahead of something God specifically instructed me to do. Why was setting something God said to do aside so easy? That's kinda scary.

But as many times as I personally have done all those things, I'm not all bad... ;-) There have also been times when I've done the right thing. I'll tell you about one of them, in fact. A short while ago, there started to be problems at my job... the company was running out of work to pay us for and kept sending us home. It was happening on a weekly basis for about 6 weeks, and losing so much work was causing me some dire financial straits. I wanted to look for a new job. Then one day, a friend told me about a job opening that sounded so perfect... it started at $10/hr with raises to follow, it was a night shift, 40 hours guaranteed, and it was very similar to the job I spent 11 years doing before my current one. I immediately went straight to the office where resumes were to be submitted and gave them mine, and they were willing to hire me!! I was SO happy!! Until I mentioned leaving the country for my 4th mission trip to Guatemala in July, which falls in the middle of the 90 day evaluation. The lady hiring told me she wasn't sure, but she believed they wouldn't keep me if I left in the middle of the 90 days, and that I should get my money back for the trip. She scheduled me for the job training and told me to think about it. So... rather than turning down the mission trip God told me to go on for a job that would've solved my financial problems, I turned down the job that would've solved my financial problems for the mission trip God told me to go on. I put His command above something that was very easy to put too much importance on. And ya know what? Immediately after turning down that job, a company-wide meeting was called at my current job, and they informed us that they'd be moving all of us full-time employees to a salary position... this meant guaranteed 40 hours, guaranteed a certain amount of money per hour/week/month/year, guaranteed raises, guaranteed paid time off, no more sending us home without pay, no more running out of work, and no more short paychecks. And to top that off, He immediately then rescued me from a $300 car repair by sending me someone to fix it for nothing more than the cost of an engine part, $35. God blessed me in a huge way for putting Him first.

So in just this one chapter that on the surface is about not sacrificing blind and/or lame animals or rotten food, I find a message that hits home hard... and very VERY much applies to every single one of us today. The message: Don't forget who He is, what He means to you, and what He should mean to you. Don't give what He deserves to anyone else, no matter who it is, but no matter what, give it to Him... your time, your prayers, your praise and worship. Do what He asks above what anyone else asks and trust Him that He'll make it work for His glory and your good. And He will. :-)

So now here I sit in front of my computer at 3:30am... when I should be sleeping because I have to work in the morning... giving Him, at my own expense, the time He asked for because earlier I gave up time that should've been His to do totally pointless things. From now on, me and my time are His first before anyone or anything else's. :-)