Do I Allow Ministry and Stuff to Eclipse Truth?

Where are you on the married-to-a-minister-o-meter?

From…

“I love this life!!  The people are AH-MAZING!!  This is so much fun!!  I don’t know why people talk about how hard it is being married to a minister.  Our church is PRE-SHUSS!”

To….

“I am so over this!!”  “I cannot wait for my husband to retire....and if he ever does retire I get to choose where we go to church.”  “What is wrong with these people!  I do not want to do this anymore!”  “Can’t you get a REAL job?”

And one tries to ‘eclipse’ the other!!

Yes, I did it!  I donned the special glasses (that many were convinced would cause blindness) and gathered the kids and looked up to the sky to see the amazing phenomenon that occurred yesterday. 

Since I am not a science geek and since most (ok all) of my education was spent (ok wasted) on socializing, I never learned much about the sun and the moon and what in the world was the big deal about the eclipse.  That is until my 8, 9 and 11 year old grands explained it all to me.  (Side benefit to having kids….they teach you stuff.  Apparently when my own kids were that age I was too busy being a mom to learn.  Great added benefit to being a grandparent.)  I had many questions and they answered them all.  So yes, I am officially becoming a science nerd.

Here’s what I learned.

The sun is bigger than the moon….yet the moon covered the sun.  It’s all about distance and perspective.  Right now my thumb is covering all of my bookcase.  Impossible?  Sure….but if the thumb is far away from the bookcase, and if the thumb is close to my eye and if I have one eye closed….it covers the bookcase.  Try it.  Stop right now and cover something large with something small…like a book case with a thumb.

A.N.D.

Sometimes I allow ministry and life and stuff to eclipse Truth.  The small, seemingly insignificant stuff can become huge and powerful and overwhelming.

Our God is bigger than the enemy….BUT way too often the enemy seems bigger than my God because I am far away from God and the lies of the enemy are closer to my mind and heart and eyes and it seems as if the enemy is bigger than my God. That the enemy is winning. 

Over the past 42 plus years I have found myself on both spectrums of the married-to-a-minister-o-meter and in a various and a sundry stages in between.  Regardless of how long you have been married to a minister, you too have experienced the good the bad and the obnoxious nonsenses that come with the territory….sometimes you experience them all in one day!!  And sometimes it seems like those obnoxious people and circumstances are bigger than our faith and our God.

Today….open both eyes, remove the vain imaginations and lies that are close to your mind and heart and look to God.  Refuse to believe we deserve more.  Refuse to believe another life would be better than the one we have now.  Look to Him.  May He not be eclipsed!

Deuteronomy 4:19  "And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven."