...one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

• March 9: I chose to limit my use of FB and blogs to give my heart and mind a break from so much stimulation.

• March 18: Scripture Memory for Brittany and me is Psalm 63:1-2. "O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory." 

• March 21: While praying for Japan I feel God say to my heart, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor."

• March 22: Luke 12:33-34 is part of my daily reading. "Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." 

• March 24: Blogged through some of the mixed signals that we send to our children about loving God more than all other things. 

• March 25: Similar mixed signals were discussed in Shepherding a Child's Heart, page 46.

I journaled through of all of this, and here's my current, rather sandy conclusion. God is calling me to: 

1. thirst and faint for Him in a way that I never have.
2. sacrifice all the clutter that vies for my affections and attention.
3. sell whatever I must and give to the poor.
4. find my treasure in heaven and in God alone.

so that I "glorify God and enjoy Him forever," and send only that message to Caleb. 

After all this, I open my Bible to pray through Psalm 146. (It's where I am in reading through the Psalms.) The Psalmist writes that God "executes justice for the oppressed," "gives food to the hungry," and that "The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless..." 

Then I turn to the Gospels to read. I'm currently in Luke 14. 

I read in Jesus' Parable of the Wedding Banquet: “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled." 

Then, Jesus says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple...So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. 

Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 

Reading and praying through all of this, I know that God is calling me to renounce and sacrifice whatever I must in order to love and treasure Him above all things.

Now what?

Father, Your will be done in my life as it is in heaven. In Jesus' Name. Amen.