Plus, you know what did happen? I had one of the best bible journaling sessions I’ve ever had, I completed 7 orders for custom prints, I went for a 6 mile run with one of my friends, and I played guitar for the first time in weeks. I felt no pressure to go on my phone because I was not getting distracted easily. And it was awesome! Sure, I responded to a few texts an hour after I received them, but everyone is still alive and I had an awesome day!
This whole thing started because I was reading a blog post about Snapchat streaks this morning. The person was talking about how ridiculous it is that we put the value of a relationship in a number and a heart emoji next to someone’s name. And then they talked about having a “streak” with God. The tagline of the post was “Start a snapchat streak with God because he wants one with you.” This really got me thinking. I like to think that I am living a good christian life: I pray, listen to worship music, and I bible journal almost daily. But how often do I really study the word, do I really pray, do I really mean the words that I am singing? It’s not that often… The streak I have with God is the black screen with a red “s” in the corner. I want to have a full faced multi-snap-a-day kind of relationship with the Lord!
So, after being super convicted by this blog post, I did a little digging to find a passage I wanted to study to kick off my best-friend status with God. And I found the perfect one! It is James 4:1-12, titled “Submit Yourself to God.” This passage is jam packed with some lovely little gems!
It begins by saying that it seems like our prayers aren’t being answered because 1) we aren’t even praying or 2) we pray with the wrong motives. Well, that was convicting from the get-go! The purpose of prayer isn’t to get God to do what we want, it’s to align our will to his! This is so important to me because the main thing I have been struggling with is getting myself to pray and mean it! I clearly need to work a little more on it!
Then, to make things even better, James reminds us that you cannot be friends with the world, or even desire to be friends with the world, if you want to be a friend of God’s! The world is the enemy and everything that is of it is evil. God is holy and can only be with pure things.
BUT (and that’s a big but) he gives us more grace! Despite the sin we are living with, despite every single thing we have ever done, there is more grace! When sin tries to break in, grace is always stronger, it always resists. And that grace is for the humble, for the people who know they need it. It comes to them not because they deserve it, but because they are receptive to it. This was another huge thing to me! I always thought God gave grace to the humble because they were somehow better through actions of some sort, but it is purely because they know they need grace! And in response to that grace, they submit ourselves to the Lord!
The study I was doing outlined 5 reasons why we should submit to the Lord. Reason 1 is that he created us. Isn’t it crazy that he gave us eyes to see, but we look anywhere but to him! He gave us feet to move, yet we walk away! He gave us lips to speak of his glory and sing his praise, but all we do is slander and curse! Reason 2 is that he is a good ruler, he wants the best for us! Reason 3 is that, ultimately, resistance to the Lord is futile. We all know that in the end, he wins! Reason 4 is that submission is necessary to salvation. To be saved, you must admit that he is the Lord and the ruler of your life. Lastly, reason 5 is that it will bring you peace. The Lord is the only true source of peace, strength, and joy. You will not find those things until you find him. I don’t know about you, but those are 5 pretty good reasons to give my life over to God!
And all of that was awesome, but verse 8 is what i really needed today. It says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” This is an invitation from God to come and be with him! Remember the tagline of that blog post? “Start a snapchat streak with God because he wants one with you.” That is what this verse is saying! God wants to be near you, but he wants for you to want it as well! He will not force you into a relationship with him, he wants you to choose! Here are some ways to choose God: worship, praise, pray, ask his council, enjoy communication with him, bring him into the little things in life, give him the plans you made and trust him to take care of it!
The one that really stuck out to me on that list was “enjoy communication with him”. I never thought about it like this, but you should not be dreading talking to God. He wants to be with you, you should want to be with him! Don’t do something you hate because you think you have to. If you hate kneeling- don’t do it! If you hate praying while you drive- don’t do it! Maybe you can’t pray until you’ve had a cup of coffee. Well then, get brewing, then pray! Don’t force yourself into quiet time, that will just make you not want to do it anymore!
Isn’t it amazing what occurred today purely because I put my phone on mute? I think it is awesome! Something I am trying to start is having a weekly verse, so this week’s is James 4:8, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” Do you have any thoughts on James 4:8 or have your own verse of the week? Please share them down below! I would love to hear from you!
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