Overflow

From a book I’m reading titled Girls’ Ministry 101 by Whitney Prosperi.

Determine right now that your first priority will be your relationship with God.  Do you place your time with God above everything else in your life – your comfort? Your things? Your recreation? Relationships? Ministry?  Even the girls you minister to?  If God is first, the rest will fall into place.  If he’s not, the rest will fall apart.  God created your for himself.  He created you to worship and know him first – not to minister.  Ministry comes from the overflow.  It isn’t our primary purpose.  The reason we have breath today is to know him.

What a slap upside the head and a relief all at the same time.  Walloped with a dead trout upside the noggin with something I know but tend to forget. I was reading this today over a turkey sandwich at Subway when I just began to cry. How true it is that everything falls apart.  How freeing it is for this perfectionist to hear that my primary purpose is to worship and know God.  Ministry is empty and draining when I neglect the Giver.  I have nothing to give to these teenagers when I don’t spend my time receiving from God. 

I can’t begin to tell you how many fish I kissed regarding this principle.  But let’s just say there have been a lot.  If they had been toads, I would have at least five princes waiting in line for me.

But each time, the slap brings me back to a reality that is more satisfying than any batter-fried catfish or broiled salmon. Freedom in Christ is the most delectable taste in all the world.  I wouldn’t savor the taste if I didn’t know how miserable it was to go without for a while.

To know that ministry is an overflow is both freeing and convicting.  If I don’t tend to my relationship with God, there will be nothing to overflow from me onto the youth of this church and this community. 

Here’s hoping you get fish-slapped, too.