Monday's Meditation: A Boss Your Heart Message

Thank you, D'Lane Moore, for today's devo:

Crock Pots in a Microwave World

D'Lane Moore

We live in a “I want now” world.  Some of us even live in an “I deserve now world”.  I admit I can fall prey to this thinking.  Monday and Thursday afternoons I tutor, so I try to leave something in the crock pot for my family to have for dinner.  The problem with crock pots is you have to think ahead of time what you want the end result to be.  And when I say ahead of time, I mean hours ahead of time.  I normally am only thinking minutes ahead of time at the most.  Doing more crock pot cooking has made me realize that there is a lot of value in getting to the end result slowly.  When I dump frozen chicken and cream of mushroom soup in a cold pot, it is hard to imagine that in 4-6 hours it will be a dinner I actually want to eat. 

My spiritual journey is much the same way.  I can think of lots of things I want God to do in my life.  I want to be more patient, I want to love my neighbor as myself, I want to make a difference in the world, and I want to finish reading through the Bible this year.  But I can’t imagine putting in my selfish, busy, desiring instant results self and getting out anything that is worth anything.  The beauty of the crock pot is that ingredients that are so “ugly” come out so yummy, not because of what they are but because of the process they go through.  The beauty of my spiritual journey, and yours too, is that it is not what I bring to the equation, it is the process God puts me through.  God does the changing as I submit to His leadership in my life.  I have to recognize my selfishness, my busyness, my impatience are a hindrance to the gradual, yet ever-present process God is putting me through. 

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 says,

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

Aren’t those beautiful verses?  God is living, personal, and present in our lives as we allow Him to enter into our lives!  He makes us more like him!  I have to remind myself sometimes, this does not happen instantly- it is not a microwave process.  It happens gradually- it is a crock pot process. 

God-

Help us to turn our face toward you.  Reveal yourself to us.  Help us to not just know or read about you, but help us to experience you.  Help us to be transformed into your image.  God, we confess that being transformed in your image is only a work you can do.  So many of us have been touched and inspired by great people around us, but someone else could never change us from the inside out like you can.  You created us and know us.  You love us and desire that we know you.  I am amazed!!!  You want me (selfish, busy, distracted me) to know you.  I am here, submitting myself to you.  Change me.

~Amen