with your whole heart....

Perhaps that is the stumbling block.  We are not inclined to go all in.  We want to do a little and see what will happen.  We want to reserve to ourselves that portion of our lives that we fear God will want.....that God will take away.....that God will change.  We want God, we just don't want all of God.

Will this work?  I suppose.  I get on my treadmill about twice a week and manage my yoga class most weeks, and I am experiencing some benefit.  Not any where near the benefit I would experience if I did these things daily.  But some benefit.

So I would guess that folks who stop by on a Sunday morning and listen (even intently) and have no further connection with God the rest of time reap some benefit.  But I am not at all surprised when these folks wander away claiming that the church failed to nurture them.  As a pastor, these folks often feel like the lightening bugs of summer.  Bright for a moment, but darting away to be lost.

The message is clear throughout the Bible.....God doesn't just want a part of you, but the whole of you so God can transform the whole of you into a new being.  Your whole heart, that's what God wants.  We can easily understand what happens in our lives when we do something 'half-heartedly.'  We are neither in or out, cold nor hot, here not there.  In refusing to make a commitment we commit ourselves to the perpetual in-between.

How can a relationship grow when your attention is cursory and your effort haphazard?  How can you get to know God when you do all the talking and none of the listening?  How can you expect to be transformed when you are always holding back?

Now, to tell the truth, giving over our whole heart to God is a lifelong practice.  You no sooner release your death grip on one part of your life than you realize that you are holding on just as tightly to another area you never considered before.  This is why confession is a constant gift to our lives.  Not because we will always eat cookies before dinner(my favorite example of an inconsequential sin), but because we have lots of corners in our heart that we are protecting from God.  Once we find one and give it up, God's light shows us another.

So pray on this, "Return to the Lord your God with your whole heart."  Show me today, Lord, the next step in my relationship with you.  For Jesus' sake.  For my sake as well.  Amen.