I was out of town last week and a day or two before I came home I walked into a little shop to buy Charisse, my three year old daughter, a “surprise.” (This is something I’ve always tried to do and I usually wind up getting her some type of little stuffed animal as she LOVES them. This time I bought her a little wolf and she named him “Wyoming”...because that is where I was when I purchased him.)
Anyway…
I gave him to her last Friday night and she smiled SO BIG (which EVERY daddy wants to see in his child…their joy!) She held him close to her and paraded around the house for the rest of the night saying, “Wyoming the wolf…Wyoming the wolf!” It was pretty cute…
The next morning I woke her up for our daddy/daughter date (wrote about why I do that here) and she wanted to bring Wyoming the wolf with us. Honestly (work with me here) I was a little jealous…I mean it was OUR time, OUR date…and she wanted to bring the stupid wolf. I allowed it…but told her that he would have to stay in the car and could not go into the Waffle House with us (as I feared they may scatted, smother and cover him!)
That night when I was putting her to bed she wanted Wyoming the Wolf to go upstairs to her room with us while she got ready for bed. AND…here’s the BIG DEAL…when it came time for her to give me a hug and kiss goodnight she literally put the wolf in between us because she wanted it to be involved. Honestly, at this point I was considering making the wolf “disappear,” heck, she was giving more attention to this stuffed animal than she was to me AND I knew that within a week or two she would not “love it” anymore and be obsessed with something else…and THEN God spoke pretty clearly…
He reminded me of all of the times I had done the exact same thing to Him…
He is my heavenly Father and longs to bless me (all of us actually) in ways we could never even imagine (see Matthew 7:7-11). Yet…so many times in my life I have received His blessings and actually worshipped them MORE than Him! (This is DANGEROUS ground—see Romans 1:25).
Heck, we’ve all done it, right?
So…the question I’ve been thinking about/wrestling with since then is…is there anything in my life that I am holding onto that God wants me to let go of? OR…another way of saying it is, “Is there anything in my life that I am giving more time, attention and money to other than HIM?”
God never asked to be ranked somewhere in our “top 10 list” of priorities…Jesus said we are to put Him FIRST (see Matthew 6:33)...and I am continually realizing that this is a constant struggle in a world that constantly produces commercials that inform us of all we do not have. If I am not careful I can actually begin to pursue and worship CREATION way more than my CREATOR.
So…it’s a question I am wrestling through…how about you?