Faith like a Job

I am a hobby person. Anything artistic or crafty I usually love it! And typically what happens with me is that I will full force get into one hobby at a time until I find a new thing that I’m excited about. Recently I started painting. Now I love art, but I had always been a sketcher. Mostly because it was a lot easier to convince my mom to buy me a 5 dollar sketch pad and some pencils rather than 50 dollars worth of paint supplies every month. 🙂 So really the only painting I had done was for school projects.

I really had no idea how much I was going to love it. It has been such a relaxing, and rewarding hobby for me. It also has helped with my self-esteem a lot, because I have always been a bit of a perfectionist with my art and with drawing everything had to be really precise for me, painting isn’t this way, so I have been enjoying the process as much as the end result.

But as with all good things there was a down side. And the enemy will undoubtably exploit it.

See I am a morning person. If I am going to do something that day I do it in the morning. And ideally the first thing I do in the morning is spend time studying in the word. But recently I had become so excited about painting that my studying fell off. The first thing I wanted to do was paint. And I’m sure most of you can relate to this in some way or another.

So this morning when I wake up the first thing that I am thinking about is getting my morning coffee and figuring out what I wanted to paint today. And God gently nudged me that it had been a while now since I had spent time with Him. So I decided that I would listen to my pastor’s sermon while I painted instead of music like I normally do. I was excited about the idea, it seemed like a perfect compromise between the two things that I really wanted to do.

But then my pastor literally said in his teaching “Put away your hobbies and focus on the Lord” and I felt a nudge from God again, like He was reminding me to not let painting become too important again. But instead of receiving that message, and being blessed by it. In the moment I felt immense guilt quickly followed by frustration. And this is what has been happening to me every time I try to spend time with the Lord. See God wasn’t telling me that I was doing anything wrong that morning, or that I needed to stop painting. Quite the opposite actually. It was like He was saying ‘Hey you’re doing what you should today, so make sure you keep doing it’ but that is not what I felt.

Some how no matter how God would say to me that I needed to spend more time with Him, it always came back to me feeling inadequate and then angry. Like a vicious circle of anger and then guilt. And today I honestly just felt exhausted by it. I was tired of the enemy ruining every moment that I tried to spend time with God. And tired of my weakness to do anything about it.

But My pastor taught on something today that spoke to me. He had been teaching out of 1 Samuel, when the Ark is stolen by the Philistines. And in his teaching he had pointed out that when Israel was ready for war and trying to fight in their own strength they lost and the Ark was stolen. But later when they are unprepared for war and the Philistines came they prayed and worshipped the Lord, and God fought the battle for them. The Israelites didn’t win that battle, God did. He made this big point of saying that sometimes when we are dealing with our sin, we don’t need to put on a brave face and battle through it, we need to instead worship God, and trust in His strength and let Him win the battle for us.

For two years I have been fighting this battle with my daily studies. I have been trying to control my own emotions, I have been trying to rebuke it when the enemy lies. But not yet had I humbled myself before the Lord.

When the sermon was over as I said I was exhausted with all of it, but I was also angry. But a different anger than what had been plaguing me. It was anger from deep inside of me, an anger with the enemy rather than myself. Because in my moment of prayer God started reminding me of something that I hadn’t considered. I had begun to treat time with Him like a job. A responsibility, something I had to do, but not something I wanted to do.

And God being the loving Father that He is revealed to me the problem, and the solution. He started reminding me of how much I love Him. How much I love spending time with Him. The joy that fills my heart. And the Joy that I can feel deep in my soul that is not my own, but His, His Joy that He is spending time with me. He reminded me that He is not just a strict Father with rules that I have to follow, but also a Friend that I laugh with. That He is my King, that vanquishes all that comes against me, just like the Israelites begged for but didn’t realize that they already had.

Friends, spending time with God is not punching a time sheet. It’s not about fulfilling an obligation. Yes, God does indeed have a job for you, a purpose that He has laid out for you, but the things you do for God are separate from the time He asks you to spend with Him.

I let myself forget that. I let myself forget that my time with Him is a blessing that He bestowed on us not a chore. I cry every time I read the passage where the curtain tore in the Temple. Because the curtain tearing represented our new ability to be close with God in a way that people couldn’t be before. It was an amazing moment that signified, that like never before we could have the blessing on an individual relationship with God! That we could go into His presence because through Jesus we are made clean continually.

I took that forgranted and I let the enemy steal my joy. I treated my faith like a job, and just like the taxes are taken out of your earnings, the enemy took the joy out of my time with God. I was putting in the work but the reward was meager.

Friends, we have a job to do, and there is good work to be done. But our time with the Lord is about building a relationship with Him, holding him closer than a friend that you can talk to for hours. It is meant to be the reward, not the work.

Thank you Lord that you are merciful, thank you Lord that you are a loving God. That even when we mess up, even when we fall so short of Your Glory, You are always there to help us back to Your side. Thank you Lord for the blessings that you pour out, and the Grace that I dont deserve that you freely give. In your precious, exalted, wonderful name, Amen.