a more pressing claim...

sunday night was our evening at church to share about our recent trip to kentucky.  i always love these nights, to remember how God worked and what He taught us... and then being able to share this with the people that sent us is so great.  each individual takes about a minute to share.  i decided (out of the many things i could have shared) to share about the sacrificial service that i saw throughout the week.  i saw this among our students, other individuals who served and then through the full time missionaries that work at the camp and mission.  whenever we have had the opportunity to visit missionaries that our church supports i am always blown away by their SACRIFICIAL service.  this is a constant challenged and something that i wanted to share with the church sunday night.  i shared that i was challenged to re-examine how i serve and to make sure that i am serving in a way that is truly sacrificial.

well, monday morning rolls around, i go into work (i.e. - walk across the parking lot :) and then later come home for lunch (back across the parking lot... so so great).  anyways, i'm home at lunch thinking about the coming year, how i will serve at church now that we won't be working with high school and i find myself being totally and way too protective of my life/time.  i was thinking over everything and wondering if i should just really back off... and then i caught myself... well, i'm sure it was more like the Holy Spirit catching me... how do i talk about being sacrificial in my service LAST NIGHT and now, less than 24 hours later, i'm being protective and selfish with my time.  do my words mean anything???

it definitely was a slap in the face and something that put me back on track.  it was one of those moments where God turned my thoughts around and back in the right direction.  today as i was thinking about this i decided to look up the word sacrifice in the dictionary.  i love words, the dictionary and really thinking about what things mean. :)  so anyways, one part of the definition reads like this:

sac-ri-fice:

the act of giving up, destroying, permitting injury to, or forgoing something valued for the sake of something having a MORE PRESSING CLAIM

so often i define sacrifice in regards to my service, just as whether or not i'm doing something.  this definition from good ol' webster's leads me to believe i have been defining the word a little incorrectly.  i can be so protective of my time (and i do think there is a place to be careful you are not doing too much, don't get me wrong, but i think it is more often that i tend to lean in the opposite direction) that i do not even come close to serving sacrificially.  we must "give up" our time to serve our God.  i love how it says too, to forgo something valued for something having a more pressing claim... yes, my time, my family, basically all God has given me is VERY VALUED but at the same time i must sacrifice all to follow and serve our Savior.  HE is most definitely a more pressing claim.  again, i say here we must not neglect our families and those that need to be loved by us... if we did so we would not be serving how God wants us to, but at the same time we must not protect too much that we are serving selfishly and only when we want to.  

i struggle with finding the right balance.  being married to a pastor DEFINITELY forces me to do this... God obviously knew my weaknesses and probably had a good chuckle putting me in this marriage with a pastor to challenge me to work on this specific weakness on a very regular basis... and often i fail.  often i have such a rotten attitude.  i wish my service and sacrifice were so much more than they are, that i would consider much more seriously that this is my offering to God... in the moment that i would respond with a sacrificial and selfless attitude.  i must rework my thinking, putting God above all that i pursue, making Him the pressing claim in my life... not to be replaced or overlooked by anything.  i want us to challenge each other with this.  not to be just "nice" friends and tell each other what we want to hear, but to really work on one another to serve as we have been called to serve, sacrificially and selflessly.  i know i need all the help and challenging i can get in this area... :)  i want these following verses to be evident in my life... i want to continue to understand more of what Jesus calls us to in His words...

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Matthew 10:37-39

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."  

Romans 12:1