Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Though Your Riches Increase

Psalm 62:10b "though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them."

I am blessed that situations in our life have changed so that in many ways our riches have increased. Because of a change in job for my husband, and because we sold a home, we now have "more wiggle room" as the saying goes. A day hasn't passed since this happened last fall, where I have not dreamed about what to do with this increase in our riches.

Today, WHAM! I came across this verse. It hit me hard that my sight is set on all the earthly things I want to do with this increase - but here it is, God plainly tells me not to do that. What then is my heart to be set on? Deuteronomy 6:5 and 6 say to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts." My heart is to be set on God! Psalm 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." My focus on this verse tends to self-centered "...and He will give you the desires of your heart." I realize that the real point of this verse is in the first half - "Delight yourself in the Lord." James 4:3 says "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." Here is the problem, when I ask for the desires of my heart, I would dare say that most of the time it is with the wrong motives - it is for self-gain. As I delight myself in the Lord, my desires will become more God-centered and less self-centered, and only then will my motives be right and pure.

So there is the challenge for myself this week - to set my heart upon loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind and to stop focusing on earthly riches.

1 comments:

Karen Hossink said...

These are great thoughts, Jen. And precisely why I've nominated you for an award. Come and see!
http://surviving-motherhood.blogspot.com/2007/04/im-so-excited.html

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
To stay at home is best.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow