Step 12- Keep God First in Your Heart- Always

Granny Wendy, “So…your adventures are over.”
Peter, “Oh no. To live…to live would be an awfully big adventure.”- Hook    

I don't know if I can say that Hook was my favorite childhood movie.  It's hard to top Return of the Jedi (obviously a children's movie because of the ewoks), but it's definitely one that I watched often and opened up my imagination to things like magic, mermaids, pirates, flying, a place where children stayed young forever, colorful food fights etc.  Neverland in the movie, Hook, is a place that makes people forget.  It even makes children forget their mothers.  In this movie, Spoiler Alert, Peter Pan, now a grumpy business man and a bad father, is forced to return to Neverland to save his children, though he had forgotten who he was.  Once he stays in Neverland a while, he almost forgets his children and his life back home.  Once he remembers, he quickly saves his children, heads back home, and decides to live his life to the fullest with the memory of Neverland and the reasons he chose to leave Neverland in the first place: his love for wife, Moira, Wendy's granddaughter, and a desire grow up and start a family.  The way Peter keeps forgetting things reminds me of how I often forget the things God has done for me and the way He has cared for me.    

Some people have a hard time trusting God in the hard times.  I tend to be the opposite and am more likely to forget God when things are good.  I get lost in Neverland... like the lost boys who forgot their own mothers. This is a habit that I am praying to overcome, and I know I will overcome.  

The thing is that I’ve felt the closest to God in the darkest days of my life. I once read a story in Frances Chan’s Book, Forgotten God, about men who had been taken as war prisoners and tortured. They would cry out to God, and He was there with them. They felt His presence very strongly in the midst of so much fear and pain. They made it out of the prison, but when they arrived back home to the comforts of life, they would sometimes ask the other ones, “do you ever wish we were back there?” The reason is because they felt so close to God there. 

Here's why keeping God first is such an important part of following God as a single woman: if you do get marriage or whatever it may be that you want, you won’t just run off into a carefree fairytale. Other people or things can never be your source of life.  We must learn to be content in all circumstances. Our circumstances do not define who we are or where we are going. 

Once you get married, have children, and are overcome with busyness, you may begin to truly understand what the men in the story meant. You may find yourself saying, “remember when I was single and God was so close?” God never forgets us, even in season of blessings.  He’s still there.

How do you remember God in the good times?

First, Find Your Identity in Christ 
Live in the reality of the cross, the reality of whose you are, and the reality of who made you.

Psalm 139:13-14 (ESV): “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are you works; my soul knows it very well.”

C.S. Lewis explains it well in this very lengthy but meaty quote: 

“The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring a two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” - C.S. Lewis

Next, Keep a Kingdom Focus
Marriage is not the destination.  Continue to move forward in your walk with Christ and be careful not look back, stay stagnant, or become complacent. Depend on the Spirit rather than the flesh, or you will naturally start to drift backwards.

Hebrews 13:14 (NLT): For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.

Don’t put the gift before the giver. Only God can satisfy. Also, you will be most joyful when you are serving and seeking Him.  Keep your ultimate purpose in mind. We must keep everything in perspective. Nothing is ever really ours anyways.

James 1: 17 (ESV): Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

“We grow up when we see our life and our roles from God’s perspective; when we thank God for the role He has assigned us and begin to see our cup as a gift instead of a cross; when each morning we ask, “God, how can I glorify You today in my given role?”- Linda Dillow, Calm My Anxious Heart

Here’s the hidden treasure that I didn’t discover the end of writing this. The steps discussed throughout this blog: Step 1- Repent, Step 2- Be still and obey, Step 3- Learn God's character, Step 4- Pray a lot and pray a lot of scripture, Step 5- Pray your desires..no really..it's okay, Step 6- Renew your mind, Step 7- Letting go and preparing yourself, Step 8- Pray for men and fight the enemy, Step 9- Iron sharpens iron, Step 10- Waiting, Step 11- Warning signs and dating and what to do with them and Step 12- Keep God first in your heart...always with the exception of Step 11 weren't just steps to following God as a single woman, but steps to following Him as much as such a mysterious and individualized thing can be put into steps...single or not.  

Thank you God for revealing this to me.  May I always keep You first.  

A prayer for Keeping God First:

Help me to find my identity in you and keep a kingdom focus. Give me a heart and a spirit that enjoys what You have for me in each moment and each season of life. Forgive me for not being grateful for what I have. You are my ultimate joy. Breathe life into my days. Thank you for all the work you are doing in my life currently and have already done. Please guide me and fill me with peace that passes understanding. I’m ready to submit to whatever calling You would have for me. Show me another piece of the puzzle each day. Come and fill every aspect of my life. Give my life meaning and strong friendships to walk to this walk with me. I ask that you would drown out any words in my heart that aren’t Yours. Pour Your Spirit out upon my life. Convict me of sin now so that I don’t have to deal with it later. Speak into my inner heart. Fill me with the fruit of the Spirit. Keep me safe and protect me as well as my loved ones from the enemy. Remove all fear from my heart this day and help me to look for You in each day. Release me from any strongholds and give me a mighty inner strength. Please help me to never forget where you’ve taken me and never forget all your past faithfulness.