I had planned on writing an Easter blog. Well, Easter was over a couple of weeks ago. Sigh. Maybe someday I'll be a real blogger. I guess it's fitting that I'm ending Easter late since I entered the Easter season already behind. Somehow it snuck up on me and I didn't even realize the Lenten season had started until I saw people walking around town with ashes on their forehead, bearing the sins that I had not even thought to confront in my own life. And it continued like that, with me rushing through life while looking for a hand hold of something deeper to grab on to. I tried to come up with a plan, of some way to make the Easter season meaningful for me and for my family. I looked for interesting activities on the internet, asked friend for ideas, kept my eye out for special Easter worship events. But I came to the realization that Easter isn't about me or about what special faith experiences I wanted to have or wanted to orchestrate for my family. How would God want me to celebrate Easter? What would honor Him?
I think God would want me to worship Him. I think He would want me to serve Him by serving others. I was too late to get in on the service opportunities our church was involved in on Good Friday, but next year I need to make that my plan. I need to start with pleasing God first and not with what I want to get out of Easter for myself. It's so easy to couch it all in spiritual terms. I was just looking to get closer to God after all. But at the heart of it all was just an attitude that focused on me and not on God. Like the night I took the kids to a tenebrae service while Eric was out of town. When we were leaving the house I prayed that God would make this a meaningful time for me and for the kids, that the service would be a meaningful experience. And then I caught myself, thinking of myself again.
Why didn't I pray that I would worship in a way that would please God? That the Lord would reveal my sin, that I would hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, that I would have a pure heart to praise the Lord, that I could worship in spirit and truth?
I have come to realize that much of my thoughts focus on me, even when I am supposedly focusing on God. I am much more steeped in selfishness than I ever realized. Too often I look for spirtual growth that will "feel good" for me. Maybe that's why I can't persevere in prayer and why I get distracted in church. It's not really about what is interesting or meaningful or inspirational to me. What pleases God? Shouldn't everything start there? I know that sometimes we need encouragement or just a sense of God's presence to comfort us. But I think I get too caught up in what I need sometimes, like a two year old who looks to the parent for only what their childhish heart wants. I long for the change in me that will cause my first thought to be of the Lord, not myself. May the Holy Spirit so transform me that I will consider myself secondary. Oh Lord, make it so.
