WHAT WE’D MISS

(Post by: Lilly Hobbs)

About a week ago, my Dad was praying at the beginning of one of our church services, right before the offering was taken up. He said something in his prayer that struck me in a new way. He said, “Oh what we’d miss, if we missed you.’’

As soon as he said that, I immediately thought of a story that happened when we were on one of our ministry trips a few months back.

We were having a great outreach at the church that we were at, and there was a certain individual there who was just starting to understand what this “Jesus thing” was really all about.

This individual went out with us on both our morning and afternoon outreach, and was greatly impacted each time. That same day, my Dad was going to preach for the evening service after supper. As we were all sitting down to eat though, we noticed that this certain individual wasn’t there.

We started supper and then started the service. The individual still wasn’t there.

Someone ended up texting them just to make sure that they were ok, and the individual answered saying that they wouldn’t be able to be with us for the evening, but that they would come again the next morning.

The service that night was crazy powerful. God moved in so many amazing ways. It was probably one of the most real and genuine services I’ve ever been in.

We came back to the church the next morning for another day of outreach, and everyone was still talking about the night before. Many of them were sharing about how God had spoken to them and how it was a night they wouldn’t forget.

Guess who was there hearing all of them talk about how amazing the night before was?

Yep. You guessed right. The individual who had missed.

Now, let me get this straight here, I was totally fine that they had to miss being with us that evening. Besides, I didn’t know where that person was or what they had to do. Of course, we were all disappointed that individual had missed experiencing God move, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

So, as everybody was standing around talking about the night before, somebody ended up asking the individual who had missed what they had to do and if everything was ok.

Are you ready to hear the individual’s response? Please prepare yourself, because I definitely wasn’t ready for this answer…

“Yeah! Everything’s fine. I went to the high school football game last night. They didn’t win though.”

I can’t even begin to explain how absolutely sickened I was when I heard that that was the reason.

Oh what we’d miss, if we missed Him. Ah, guys, I want you to get this today. It sickened me that this individual missed being in the presence of God, and, for something so completely trivial.

Sure, it was only one night. But it was a night that person will never, ever get back. You see, the individual wasn’t going to support a family member or anyone in particular. They were simply going to watch a football game on one of the three nights this revival was taking place at their church.

There are so many of us who try to justify our worldly pleasures. “Well, you know, I shared the Gospel all day and got my “Jesus time” in, so now I can go to the football game.

We seem to have a bad habit of “rewarding” ourselves with worldly things after we do anything at all spiritual.

I know that there may be some us who will read this post and think that we’ve heard this time and time again. However, might this be the time that things actually change for you?

Listen, I don’t want to be a Christian who looks back and realizes that I missed it. I want to be a Christian who gets to Heaven and knows that I ran as fast and as hard as I could after Jesus. Placing Him first in every single area of my entire life.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

The key is to seek first, not second.

“Aim at Heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”  (C.S. Lewis)

SO WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= Do you feel like you miss what God has for you sometimes?

= Is there anything that you related with in this post?

= What are you going to do differently?