Jesus Shouldn't Be the Most Important Thing

I have been living my life where Christ is the most important thing. Claiming to put Him first before my family, friends, wants, needs and desires, but what I am realizing is He doesn't need to be the most important thing in my life. Jesus should be the only thing in my life. Everything I do should ooze of Jesus. Should have His fragrance all over it. Should be about the love I have for the Man who loved me first, and yet, I live my life so differently.

I am in a place where I realize my relationship about Jesus is mostly about me and my effort and my time and my needs and my desires and my, my, my!! I use Him for my own benefit and gain, and then I wonder why when things fail, or I am hurt or frustrated I begin to lose sight of what matters most. What He wants from me is not a show, or perfection, or a mask, a lifetime of ministry, or even to know about Him, what He wants is for me to know Him.

It is amazing that after almost 18 years of knowing Jesus as my Savior, I still find myself boasting in how much I know about Him instead of truly knowing Him. When I go through the day I don't just listen to the Rabbi's heartbeat. I don't keep my heart inclined with the love and spirit of Jesus, if I am truly honest. I don't bring everything to Him. I try to tackle most of life without even considering listening to the Jesus I claim to love more than anything. I think because I am pastor's wife I have truly convinced myself that it all should just be innate in me. I should know the right things to say, how to pray, how to think, how to raise my kids, how to do anything that is remotely spiritual and so I pretend that I know how to. I have done such a good job of performing the art of pretending I have even convinced myself I know how. And all it does is lead to self-righteousness and self-dependency.

So here I am, once again, broken before the Lord, realizing the distractions of life and the role I play, has kept me from Jesus. From really hearing his heartbeat. I have fooled myself but have only saddened my sweet Lord. I read about a Jewish man named Mordecai who was this rambunctious lover of the world. He loved the lakes he swam in and the trees he climbed and refused to go to the synagogue to worship because he did not want to leave what he loved. Jesus came to his village and asked to be left alone with the boy. He picked Mordecai up and held him silently against his heart. Jesus said nothing. Just held him. The next day the boy began going to the synagogue before the lakes and woods he loved so much. You see Jesus became one with the world Mordecai loved all because He heard the heart of Jesus.

I love my world. I love my husband, my kids, my family, my habits (good and bad), my church, my world. And I love Jesus first. But that isn't what He wants. He wants me to understand that I am the one that Jesus loves. That even in the midst of my flesh laying against His breast is where I find myself because I am the one Jesus loves. In my authentic true person He created for His pleasure, I am the one that Jesus loves. Our hearts will begin to beat together as one when I just lay against His breast and listen to his heartbeat even in the midst of sin and selfishness and rebellion and know that I am the one that Jesus loves.

Jesus shouldn't be the most important thing, He should be the only thing. And yet I don't live this way, and until heaven, I never fully will. But even knowing that, I am learning to lay against His breast and breathe in that I am the one that Jesus loves. And slowly my world will become one with Jesus, my unbelievable, Jesus. And then and only then does Jesus become not the most important thing, but the only thing.

Until next time,
Megan