Following Jesus Should be Our Highest Goal

During my series, Confident in God's Hands, I've given you a lot of tips about how to become more courageous after suffering from abuse or trauma. Hopefully, these ideas have been helpful to you. I know that writing them for you has helped me to feel more confident. We're about midway through the series, and I'd like to pause to reflect on an important point.

Along the way, I have discovered something that I wasn't expecting. We may set big goals and make plans to achieve them. We may have dreams in our hearts that we desperately want to make real. But in the end, our highest goal has to be a real relationship with Jesus.

Unless the Christ is enough for us, we will never feel fulfilled. We've got to get to the point where it doesn't matter if we've got a great job, lots of money, a nice house, a sleek new car, a loving partner, or anything else we think we have to have. When we place too much emphasis on our worldly achievements, Jesus takes a back seat along the way. And that's not where he wants to be.

Jesus wants to be in the driver's seat, with us right beside him. Above all things, he wants us to want him more than anything else. Finding a way to get close to him is our greatest challenge. And when we find him, he will be our greatest prize.

Let me say that again. Jesus must be the goal we are aiming for first and foremost. Just sitting in his presence and praising him for his love must give us total satisfaction. If it doesn't, we've got our priorities out of order.

I'm not saying that we can't have other dreams. We certainly can't sit around all day, just grinning from ear to ear because we're close to Jesus. He put us all here to do things. But we have to remember that he wants our complete love and attention 24/7. He wants us to be content with him first. Then, when other dreams get fulfilled, we can feel extra blessed.

We run into trouble when we put our dreams first. When they don't get fulfilled, we get angry at Jesus for failing us. We rail at him for letting us down, over and over. The sad truth is that we're failing him when we act like this.

We may discover in the process of chasing after dreams that we are spoiled rotten children. God our father doesn't want us to just demand baubles and cookies and fun from him. He wants us to crawl up into his lap, rest our head on his chest, and snuggle into the comfort of his arms. He wants us to share our innermost thoughts with him. More than anything, he wants to lead and protect us throughout life so that he can shower blessings on us.

But when we become like demanding children, stomping our feet and pouting over what he hasn't given us, Jesus puts us in time out. There, we stay until we learn that we need to respect and love him first. Only then will we position ourselves to be blessed by him.

And if our focus becomes trained on receiving blessings as a result of loving Jesus, we'll continue to sit in time out. We must expect nothing...absolutely nothing beyond a relationship with him. When we get to that point of realizing that he alone is our greatest dream come true, then the blessings will flow.

A lot of preachers claim that Jesus will shower us with blessings...that we deserve them. Unfortunately, we often believe that those blessings come with four tires attached...or a roof...or a karat designation.

The truth is, God's blessings may come in the form of greater peace, giving up unrealistic expectations, feeling content in spite of our circumstances, or simply resting in the knowledge that the King of the universe loves us deeply.

Micah 6:8 (NIV) reminds us of what is really important. He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

To act justly means that we stand up for those who cannot speak up for themselves. This is why I have chosen to become the voice for victims of abuse and trauma. Someone must speak out against the victimization of helpless people. I am blessed in knowing that I am creating greater awareness of this problem so that laws will be changed to protect innocent children and victims of crime.

To love mercy means that we look after the needs of those around us who are weaker than we are. This would include helpless children, the unborn, widows, handicapped people, the elderly among us,and anyone else who is suffering. I am blessed in knowing that I am helping others, like me, who have experienced abuse and trauma. Giving others comfort, as God has comforted us, ought to be one of our loftiest goals.

To walk humbly with your God means that we have to give up pride. I never realized until this past week how prideful I have been. I always thought that humility simply meant that I was willing to admit my faults. It's far more than that. We become prideful when we take our problems into our own hands and attempt to solve them through stupid means.

In my case, I have tried to solve my financial troubles in a host of ways so that my husband can work just one job. A lack of money has created a huge hang-up for me, because I have been stubbornly refusing to let Jesus help me with the problem.

Jesus doesn't just want us to give up trying to control some things in our lives. He wants us to give up our need to fix all of our problems. The only solution to our problems is to admit to Jesus that our lives are unmanageable, that we have made an even greater mess in trying to fix things, and that we acknowledge him as our only hope for relief.

Hmmm...seems to me that I learned that slogan years ago at Al-Anon. I read it, memorized it, repeated it, and thought that I was living it when I gave up trying to control other people's lives. Now, I realize that I must give up trying to control my own life.

When we really and truly humble ourselves before God, we discover that we can hear his voice, telling us which way to go. Then, it really doesn't matter whether we have goals or not. Because, in the end, our highest goal ought to be to follow wherever he leads, confident that he will take us where our hearts desires will be fulfilled.

Today's Challenge
Take time to reflect today where you stand with Jesus. Is he completely in control of every aspect of your life? Or are you taking back problems and trying to solve them with your own plans? Do whatever it takes to surrender everything to him, including your own life and all of its challenges.