We Left Him Out

Why do we as Christians, as humans, think that we can do life without God? Why do we feel as though we can just leave God out of certain things (sometimes everything)? Is it because we think we’re truly capable of handling it all on our own? I don’t think so … but we’re very good at pretending like it … but even pretending like it has an expiration date. We get so caught up in everyday life because it’s either going really well or not as well as we would have liked or expected. So, I titled this post “We Left Him Out” because that’s exactly what we do. When we get caught up in one of the two they cause us to knowingly OR unknowingly leave God out. We literally pick and choose when to bring God into the fold of our lives, and if I’m being honest, a lot of us typically wait until we get caught up in the not-so-good things in our lives. I say the latter because I’m guilty of it. However, I do recognize that this is not the way God intended for us to live our lives. God should NEVER be left out of ANYTHING concerning our lives, meaning the good, and not-so-good.

I think that when life is going really well for us of course we don’t have any complaints or anything. We’re just simply enjoying what is taking place and this is one way we can easily leave God out. We may occasionally thank God for the blessings, the favor, the positivity in our lives … or not at all. Things may be going so well that we may or not may even think we got all of this good going and flowing because of something we did on our own - see? Leaving. God. Out. But, as believers, we should never get anywhere close to that type of mentality because there is no gratitude or thankfulness, there’s no God. If I’m being quite honest speaking on the good that taking place in my life right now, my soul longs to include God even in that. I think in my mind, how can I not even acknowledge the Father who has allowed such good to flow my way? How can I even try to fix my mind to think I got all this goodness on my own? I mean I know if I work hard whether that’s working hard as a wife, a mother, as an employee I’ll reap the reward of it but some of the things that even come with those duties and titles are a direct result of God’s goodness. It could be the smallest good that comes my way and I know for a fact that I didn’t do anything for it to show up … but God did. God is so mindful of us and he’s always thinking of us - so why would we leave him out of that?

On the flip side, I think when life is not going as well this is another way, and dare I say, a more common way we tend to leave God out. I say this because it’s so easy to get caught up in the circumstances that are not working out in our favor, we instantly think it was something that we did or didn’t do to cause it. We don’t even stop to think that maybe this is happening because God needed us to get back to him. We are in our heads so much, wracking our brains, even blaming others trying to figure why why why instead of immediately taking our circumstances to God for wisdom and understanding. Could it be that the not-so-good is taking place because God sees us not including Him so he gets our attention this way? I think on the contrary it’s easy to bring God in on the not-so-good and simply blame him for the circumstances, but to actually not even consider God in the not-so-good again feels like we think entirely too much of ourselves or very little of ourselves. For example, I use to think that not-so-good things would happen to me because of something I did or didn’t do. One of my old bosses said to me once, “Tenia do you really think that highly of yourself that you have that much power to cause something bad to happen to you? Do you believe you’re that close to God?” 🤯 I had to take a step back like WHOA, you are absolutely right! I don’t have that type of power.

Now I’ve talked about leaving God out of the good and the not so good in our lives, but one thing I believe the Holy Spirit also wanted me to make mention of is when we leave God out of life in general. I can speak for myself and say more times than not I don’t consult God on my subconscious thoughts, feelings, or desires. My dad, for as long as I can remember has always encouraged me and prompted me to take those little subconscious things to God in prayer because they matter. You’d actually be surprised and more apt to take everything to God in prayer because he will answer one way or another. Honestly, not even speaking on including God in the subconscious JUST to get the answers we need, but we really should be including God in our everyday lives concerning everything about our lives because he longs to be a part of it and we should want Him to be apart of it just as much. This is something that I am still actively working towards doing habitually, I am very self-aware about it because I’m either thinking to myself or saying out loud, “I need to pray about this!” So now I need to just actually do it and not just talk about it, just immediately drop everything I’m doing right then and there and take it to God in prayer.

Matthew 6:30-33 (MSG) says, “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers - most of which are never even seen - don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” These verses just blessed me and even the more encourages me to continually seek God in EVERY AND ANYTHING - to not leave God out of my life, to not leave Him out of the good and the not-so-good things. I pray it encourages you too 🙏🏽.