this & that

The story goes as follows: God promised Abraham that his family would be so big-- you couldn't count 'em. Abraham waited what seemed like forever for the promise to come true. Finally, when Abraham and Sarah were very old, they had a son, Isaac. Then God decided to test Abraham. He told Abraham to give up his son.

Can you imagine the three day trek Abrham had to take to the moutain where he was going to sacrifice his son? There must have been tears. The inner turmoil.

God wants us to get rid of our "this" to make room for God's "that." Abraham's "this" was his son. God was testing him to see if his "this" would get in the way. Did Abraham love his "this" more than his God. Becuase Abrham did not spare his "this" then God promised to bless (good stuff) him tremendously.

When we get rid of the "this" in our lives then God's good stuff has room. He wants to pour in to our lives with limit... but we have "this" things that stand in the way. "This" things take up our time, our energy, our money, our attention. Some examples of "this" things are...
Attitudes: Rebillious attitude. I-Don't-Care Attitudes. We need to break 'em. We need to dispose of our "this" attitude becuase God wants to give you good stuff like peace, love, joy.
Habits: Things we do over and over again. It may be web sites, chat rooms, relationships that do not advance our life as Christians. In fact, they detour us from our journey to be more like Christ.
Hobbies: Not every "this" in our life is necessarily bad. But some of us have so many things we doing that they push God further and further down the priority list. Evaluate your activies, you hobbies. Are you doing things that are just busy stuff and push God out of the way.

I challeng you to get rid of one "this" thing today. Just one! It can be the easiest thing. And when you get rid of that "this" thing in your life, you will realize that you are have made room for God's "that". His "that" is so much better. Perfect even.