A Birthday ❃ A Pity Party ❃ And A Mansion
It seems like forever ago when I celebrated my birthday at church on a Sunday morning. I was supposedly having a time of worship. It was more like a pity party with only me and God in attendance.
I was in my early 20s, yet I was mourning the loss of things I had not done in life. Birthdays have a way of doing that sometimes. I looked at friends who were far more successful. Most had graduated from college and were beginning careers. Some were about to step into ministry and had the world at their fingertips. I had only empty hands with seemingly nothing to offer.
My finite mind had eternity figured out as I accepted my losses. I imagined all the mansions in Heaven that people would be rewarded with because of the amazingness of their life. I talked honestly with the Lord about my little house that would be surrounded by big houses. Forever and ever people would walk by my littleness and say… Oh, she did nothing for God. Look how small her mansion is. I wept and leaned into my sorrow.
My pity party got interrupted when the Lord brought back a memory from when I was about 18 years old. I was having a time of worship while alone in my bedroom. Tears fell off my face as I talked with the Lord about how many rewards I had already gathered in Heaven. I grieved, not for me, but for others who lived their life for self and not for God. I offered the Lord an idea. How about… He could take my rewards and give them to others who had none. After all, the only thing I wanted was God Himself. As long as I had Him, I had more than ever could be accumulated throughout eternity.
Now I was crying in deeper sorrow, but it was not because of how big or little my eternal mansion would be. It was because I realized how far I had fallen in my devotion to Christ.
At the end of the day, I come back to this. What really matters is not so much what I have or have not done for the Lord. It’s how I lived in true devotion to Christ. The more I love Him, the more I love others. The more I walk with Him, the more I want to walk with others. The more He becomes my reward, the more rewards I have to share with others.
God is my great and exceeding reward. He is and will forever be ・more than enough ・for me.
I will not be afraid. The Lord is my shield, my very great reward. Genesis 15:1