As part of my journey to find a community of believers here in Idaho that I can immerse myself in, I went to a women's conference this past Saturday. In the past I have never been a huge fan of women's events because many of the events that I have attended have been heavily focused on women's roles as homemakers and not as strong individuals who have a lot to offer both inside and outside of the church. This can especially be demonstrated by when women's events or groups are held in most churches. It is rare to find a group that doesn't not meet during the day on a weekday- which leave no room for any woman who is not a stay at home wife/mom.
Despite all bad past experiences with women's events, I decided to go to this conference and I am extremely glad I did. Rather than a bunch of stay at home moms who were married at 21 and had never known real hardship, the 3 speakers had a wealth of life experience to share and were more than willing to admit their faults in front of a room full of women. It was refreshing and yet so different to hear such raw honesty from Christian women at a women's event.
Of the three speakers, the third one impacted me the most. She incorporated many great stories and metaphors into her talk, but there was one thing that she said that shook me up and got me motivated to start digging myself out of the pit I've been in and to get back on track with life. She was speaking on the subject of how to remain near to God and she said that so many people only give God a few minute here and a few minutes there whenever we can squeeze it in, but God wants more from us than just pocket change. He wants us to INVEST in him because pocket change is not enough to build and sustain a relationship.
As I reflected on this, God took this metaphor even further for me. Because Josh and I would like to be able to buy a home at some point over the next few years but we have a lot of things to take care of before then, God made the metaphor more personal. What I heard was imagine trying to save up for a house with just whatever pocket change you are able to set aside. Would you ever be able to save enough? If something is that important you should be willing to sacrifice in order to invest as much as you can. Likewise you are trying to build a relationship with God with pocket change - with the few spare minutes at the end of a busy day.
That point pierced me through the soul as though it was intended specifically for me. In my loneliness, I had been so focused on how to connect with other people that I had nearly stopped connecting with God. After investing all of my free time and energy into building relationships with other people, I only had pocket change left to spend on my relationship with God. I was just dropping in a few pennies worth of time here and there - just enough to say I had done SOMETHING.
Praise God that he loves me even when I only give him pocket change and I pray that he will give me the discipline to invest in him substantially moving forward - even in my loneliness and heartache.
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