Is God Really The God of My Life?
If my friends were talking behind my back about the priority of my life, I wonder what they might say. It’s sad when people say about a star hockey player – “Well, hockey’s his god.” Or about a successful corporate climber: “She lives for her career. It’s her god.” Or “He lives to golf.” It’s one thing to say ‘he loves to golf’ but when someone suggests that he ‘lives’ to golf, it means golfing has claimed first spot in his life – elevated to the pinnacle.
The very first commandment in the Decalogue is: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3
Regardless of who is speaking in Psalm 42 or whose experience the Psalm may be portraying, it is plain to see the person is thirsting after God. It’s a painful experience to not be enjoying close communion and fellowship with God – whatever the reason might be. Sometimes we sin and we can immediately feel the barrier; and the distance only grows greater as we delay our confession. Other times, the Lord is testing us and our faith begins to flounder and we are filled with doubts. We wonder if God is still there.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
and why art thou disquieted in me?
hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance…..
the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime,
and in the night his song shall be with me,
and my prayer unto
the God of my life.
(Psalm 42:5-8)
In times of discouragement, in times of trouble, in times of despair can you get alone with God and tell Him He truly is the God of your life? Or would those words be hard to say without sounding contrived, shallow and a bit empty? Would the words be bouncing back at you: “Sure, ‘the God of my life’; who am I trying to fool? God knows I haven’t been giving Him first place in my life. I’ve only been ‘nominally’ worshipping Him as my God, but truthfully, I have been bowing at the shrine of success or pleasure or selfish pursuits.”
John Stott defined ‘other gods’ in our life this way:
“You shall have no other gods before me. This is God’s demand for man’s exclusive worship. It is not necessary to worship the sun, the moon and the stars to break this law. We break it whenever we give to something or someone other than God himself the first place in our thoughts or our affections. It may be some engrossing sport, absorbing hobby, or selfish ambition. Or it may be someone whom we idolize. We may worship a god of gold and silver in the form of safe investments and a healthy bank balance or a god of wood and stone in the form of property and possessions. None of these things is necessarily wrong in itself. It only becomes wrong when we give to it the place in our lives which belongs only to God.”
As we go about our activities today may this question be embedded in our minds: “Who or ‘what’ really is the God of my life?” Would my friends think God has absolute first place in my life? Would my family think God occupies the throne of my heart – or would they see me as just doing my best to fit God into my schedule and trying to act as if He was the God of my life? Would they see genuine reality or a bit of a contradiction between my lofty words and prayers and how I actually live?
May the Lord help us to evaluate our lives in light of the place the Lord should have in our lives. In times of distress, temptation or failure how awesome it is to be able to approach God with confidence and call Him the God of my life.