Lifelong

When I was 4, we had monthly memory verses in Sunday School. One month, the verse was "Children obey your parents in the Lord." My mom liked to remind me of it whenever I was disobeying her.

After that month was up and we were learning a different verse, I was disobeying and my mom reminded me of the verse. But, sharp little girl that I was, I responded, "Mom, that was last month's verse."

Somehow, I got the impression that I only had to apply the verse of the month.

But, thanks I'm sure to my mom's response (I don't remember it, but I'm sure she corrected my misunderstanding), and to general growth over the past 24 years, I've come to realize that living for God is a lifelong thing, not a flavor-of-the-day thing.

Now, there are certainly times in our lives when God is trying to teach us one particular thing. And since I am often kind of dense on these matters, those times usually consist of a lot of sources all echoing the same message until it gets through my skull.

But once God has adequately gotten the message through and I've begun to apply it, that doesn't mean I drop what I've learned when the next message comes along. And that continues to be the challenge. Even though I know now that God's Word is living and active all throughout my life, somehow God seems to have to remind me of the same lessons over and over.

I was reading some old journal entries today and noticed that some of the entries, though a year or two a part, closely echoed each other. Others echoed things I'm learning now, that I thought were new and novel.

The bad news is that this will always be the case, as long as I'm on this earth. I'll be a work in progress 'til the day I die, constantly learning and relearning what it means to live for God.

The good news is, the more abide in Christ and let his Spirit flow through me, the more his fruits and work just flows out of me. This is what I delight in.

Jesus, let me live for you all my life.