So I have been MIA in the blogging world for a while now, and to be honest it is just laziness. I love to put my thoughts on a blog but often don’t feel like taking the time to do so. Hopefully for the next 40 days at least I will be consistent, even if the post is short but sharing what the Lord is speaking to me each day. Why am I taking this challenge…..please read….

Yesterday my friend Matt Cote brought an amazing message and challenged our local church to a 40 day challenge to get into God’s world (if you want to listen online you can go to www.brentwoodchurch.org and download the podcast…I think you should it was awesome). I wanted to take on this challenge to not just “talk the talk” but to actually get into the word, learn, and show Christ that he is my ultimate authority and deserving of my time! The challenge is that for 40 days, everyday, you designate 20-25 mins in the word. I have to admit this is always a struggle for me. When life gets busy it seems as if God takes a back seat first, and I hate that! I will get my tail out of bed at 5:00 in the morning to take care of myself physically for an hour, I will have no problems chatting it up with a friend on the phone or at a coffee shop for hours, but to wake up early, or to set aside 20-25 mins to be with God seems challenging……why is that!!??? I want a change!

My small group is doing a study right now called “No Other God’s” by Kelly Minter. At first I think we were all like “oh…idols….yeah it will be a good study….but I don’t have idols in MY life.” Little did we know that all 6 of us have been blown away by this study the past four weeks. It has been revealing, challenging, hard, and humbling. Today I started the 40 day challenge. I asked God “Lord what do you want me to read today”, and after a while I wasn’t hearing anything, I already found myself frustrated. So I started my study for this week and that is when God said “Erin….THIS is what you need today” and did I ever!!

I have read the book of James numerous times, but for some reason this verse has not popped out to me the way it did today. I read it and re-read it, and had a pang of conviction each time. James 4: 1-3 (NIV) says “What causes quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” I also like how the Message phrases this passage: “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don't have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn't yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it. You wouldn't think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you'd be asking for what you have no right to. You're spoiled children, each wanting your own way.

Wow…see sometimes idols…”functional gods” are things that really are good things…its just the way we handle those desires that can turn them into idols. The word desire from verse 2 means to “covet or to lust”, Kelly Minter says that it is taken from the Greek word epithumio with literally means “to set the heart upon, i.e. long for (rightfully or otherwise)-covet, desire, lust (after). Kelly also says that an example of a “good” desire that we have may be the struggle for relationships, and the desire to be loved. Not that men don’t have this desire but she says that she thinks the pervasive desire to be loved and chosen is especially innate in women. This desire is a very good thing, a God-given thing, however we’ve all been on both sides of what happens when this desire becomes the dominating force in a person’s life. This is seen through friendship, families, and marriages that are utterly destroyed over an obsessive and consuming desire to be loved by someone. Again…taking a natural desire but making it an idol by being willing to sin (covet, lust, jealousy, bitterness, anger, and even murder) to get it.

How many times have I asked God over and over again for something….most of the time something “good” with “wrong motives” vs. 3, or having no right to have it at that time knowing that if I got it would be a consuming idol in my life? How many times have I desired to have something in my own life, and seen it in someone else’s and allowed jealousy, anger, bitterness, disconnect, and covetousness to enter the scene and either destroy a relationship, prevent one from happening, or “fighting and quarreling” with that person. How sad! I don’t want that!

Day 1…wow….amazing! I know that James 4: 1-3 spoke to me and challenged me in areas that I needed to hear! Thank you Lord for showing that to me today!