Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing
In the swirl of holidays, deadlines, celebrations, family gatherings, and general mishegas (Yiddish for “craziness”), I find it more important than ever to keep Yeshua in my viewing screen. Whenever other things come up, it seems too easy to crowd Him out! That is why I feel the need to recommit to my Messiah and take extra time to be with Him, leading me to a deeper sense of gratitude. The title is instructional for those busy seasons… and always. Yeshua is the Main Thing.My wife Katharine is awesome. I love how she encourages me to strengthen my private relationship with Yeshua. She is a dedicated intercessor, with prayer time and seeking the Lord’s face a natural supernatural part of her life.I seem to get distracted by tasks at hand and “deadlines and commitments.” Especially around those particularly noisy times of year like the holidays, when I must arise earlier to seek the satisfying solitude of His company. King David has some royal wisdom for us all.
Psalm 63:1 “O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”
David wrote these powerful words as he wandered the Judean wilderness. It was not his first pass through the severe silence of the desert. In fact, it was his third time in the area. The inhospitable desert was familiar to him. First, he grew up tending the sheep at the edge of the desert. Bethlehem, his hometown, was situated between the agricultural hill country of Judah and the rough-and-tumble desert where skilled shepherds could feed their flocks. The available pasture sprouted up amid the endless rocky terrain, and the shepherd would need to know where to find it.Next, David ran through this area when King Saul was trying to kill him. By the time David wrote Psalm 63, he was running from his own son! This very terrain yielded the poetry of David. It was indeed “a dry and thirsty land...” King David wrote Psalm 63 while running for his life. His son Absalom had fomented an uprising against him. This has to be the second most painful thing a parent can face. The first would be the death of a child.The barrenness of the environment matched David’s agonizing emotional landscape. In the midst of it all, David used poetry to instruct us in seeking the Lord.Regardless of inner turmoil or outward tumult, we can “keep the Main Thing the main thing!”“Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.”Psalm 63:3–4Image courtesy Church of Christ in Zion, Illinois