There are so many things that compete for our attention and energies. The church is not exempt. The church and more specifically preachers are continually calling for people to do more, give more, serve more, and to become preoccupied with all of these. In calling people to do so much good we err calling people to be preoccupied with lesser things and not to be preoccupied with the best thing.
I am not sure what the Lord is doing in me but it is good, it is deep, and it is pulling me to closer and closer to Him. After a rather dry season and a seven day period during Thanksgiving where I did not have one quiet time, I was challenged a few weeks ago with [Matt 22: 37-38] which states that we are to love the Lord God with all of our hearts, souls, and strength. Since that day I have sought the Lord for a personal revival, which has translated to a great searching for the Lord and seeking Him. He alone is to be our everlasting preoccupation. Our thoughts should continually dwell on Him. Our affections should ever be increasing for Him. Our devotion should be continuously focused on Him. God has rekindled something real in the caverns of my soul.
Some of what we do in our churches actually can compete with our everlasting preoccupation with Him. We can stay busy but busyness can actually distract our preoccupation with God. We may find ourselves doing many things for God but never making the time to seek God and know Him in our private lives. By doing more we can actually experience Him less. Many do and have contented themselves to live in this dry and desert like condition.
None of us can produce this everlasting preoccupation with God. That is a work He has to produce in our lives but we can help to foster this by simply slowing down and lingering in His presence. He will create that desire and He will help us not only find the time but make the time to be sit at His feet and worship.
I know people who are preoccupied with making a fortune. What happens to all that money in the end? It doesn’t follow us into eternity. Others are fixated on sports for themselves or their children. The end of this path will only result in frustration. Most of our children will never play competitively at the college level much less the professional level. We create stress and frustration in the stands and on the playing field or court. During those times our preoccupation with winning and being successful at something as child like as playing ball can bring out the worst in us. How many sons and daughters have gone to bed misty eyed and broken hearted over the stinging words of an angry parent preoccupied with their child’s athletic career? How many student athletes play but resent the demands put on them by parents or coaches who only know the temporary preoccupation with winning but who have bankrupt souls who no little to nothing about the everlasting preoccupation with God.
How many are preoccupied with life and service at the church but inwardly they are hypocrites and rotten to the core of their souls? Worship is hollow and life for these people is nothing more than religious rituals, singing from rote memory, and staying in the religious ruts of many around them. Outwardly these people may appear to be the cream of the crop but inwardly they are inconsistent and living a life of pretense. Where is the preoccupation with knowing the Lord in the pews that translates into a life spent in pursuit of Him? [Ps 63:8]
I am captured by the thought of having an everlasting preoccupation with seeking to know the living God. It is an everlasting preoccupation because there will always be more to know about God even throughout eternity. There will always be more to know like a person walking into a huge library but one that contains every book that has ever been written since the beginning of time. I am talking about millions of books lined up on shelves from floor to ceiling stretching into infinity. No person could ever read and retain that much knowledge. Even if one could that would only represent a fraction of the person of God and all that can be known about Him. There is no greater reality in all the universe and yet countless numbers of people who call themselves Christians have seldom if ever been preoccupied with knowing Him and discovering more about Him for months at a time rather than everlastingly. It is a tragedy.
Here is the question before us. Will we plead with God to develop that everlasting preoccupation within us or will content ourselves to be preoccupied by other things? Lesser things. Temporal things.
Dear Father, I plead for you to come and reorient my mind and heart to be preoccupied with you for eternity. I want that preoccupation for the here and now and I want it to follow me throughout eternity. I ask you to consume my life and captivate my deepest affections. I ask for an insatiable craving to know you more than being entertained, chasing after idols, and settling for lesser things. Please help me not be too easily amused or satisfied with the flittering and glittering stuff of this age that will not last. I ask you for an everlasting preoccupation with you that gets me up in the morning, sustains me through the day and tucks me in the bed at night. In Jesus name, amen.
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