Today’s thought for the day is an excerpt from Walking With God, my favorite John Eldredge book:

We are created to enjoy life. But we end up worshiping the gift instead of the Giver. We seek for life and look to God as our assistant in the endeavor. We are far more upset when things go wrong than we ever are when we’re not close to God….Our first reaction is usually to get angry with him, which only serves to make the point. Don’t you hear people say, “Why did God let this happen?” far more than you hear them say, “Why aren’t I more fully given over to God?”

We see God as a means to an end rather than the end itself. God as the assistant to our life versus God as our life. We don’t see the process of our life as coming to the place where we are fully his and he is our all. And so we are surprised by the course of events. 

It’s not that God doesn’t want us to be happy. He does. It’s just that he knows that until we are holy, we cannot really be happy. Until God has become our all, and we are fully his, we will continue to make idols of the good things he gives us. We are like a child who throws a fit because he cannot have a toy or watch TV. In the moment, he could care less that his mother adores him. His world is out of sorts. He does not see that his heart is not in the right place. He needs his mother’s love and comfort far more than he needs the thing he’s made an idol of.

John Eldredge, Walking with God

That’ll preach, my friends…

Happy Friday!