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Our little farm is overrun with critters – cute, but destructive, critters.
It started with one or two rabbits that are now eight to ten rabbits. It’s impossible to keep a garden! They eat everything as quickly as it shoots up.
Then there was a ground hog. She blessed us with three babies who liked the neighborhood enough to stick round. Now there are four or five ground hogs in our yard. They have expanded their tunneling efforts from under the barn to under the granary and the machine shed. Plus, I just discovered a new tunnel in the hill outside our house.
Cute or not the critters have to go before they destroy what’s valuable to us – our property.
I love to have fun – to a fault. I have a couple of pass-times that are much like those critters. They started out small and innocent enough. Ways to entertain myself at the end of a busy day. But they have grown into destructive forces in my life. They eat away precious time. I find myself neglecting to
“Redeem the time because the days are evil…” (Ephesians 5:16)
They are now burrowing in during the day. The snippets of time I used to spend in prayer and thoughtful contemplation, I now fill with fun. They distract my mind from eternal things. They compete for pre-eminence in my life. Bottom line? They burrow into my spiritual foundations and undermine what is most valuable to me: my first love.
“But I hold this one thing against you, you have lost your first love.” (Revelation 2:4)
Maybe wasting time isn’t a sinkhole for you, like it is for me. Maybe you get caught up in the pursuit of wealth or possessions. Gaining a fortune and enjoying the fruits of your labor are not inherently bad things (Abraham, for example, was a very godly, very wealthy man) if the Lord still holds first place in your heart.
Do not lay up your treasures on earth…” (Matthew 6:19-20)
Perhaps you seek a certain level of fame or notoriety – as an influencer on social media or a somebody in your own community or sphere of influence. Again, those are not necessarily bad things. But who you are in Christ must remain more valuable than who you are in the eyes of the world.
“Thou and thou only first in my heart…”
The writer of this very old hymn had an undivided heart, with one desire, and one desire only – for God to be forever and always first in everything. Fun, fortune and fame all took second place to her true inheritance in Christ. Her longing to let nothing distract her, pull her away from the High King of Heaven is clear in her desperate plea to God:
Be Thou my vision!
This lovely, ancient hymn touches a place deep inside me. Sometimes I think it’s the tune drawing out my Celtic roots, or the passionate lyrics resonating with my inner writer. Mostly, I believe it expresses the plea of my own, often distracted and divided heart better than I ever could:
“Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision of Ruler of all!”