My first love

Tonight Ruco and I went to Gonzalez UMC for Holy Week. Our pastor from Allen Memorial was speaking, so we went to Tijuana Flats with the youth group, and then went over for the service. I just have to say that the worship was AMAZING! I felt so thirsty for a service like that, where you can raise your hands and feel the presence of the Lord everywhere. It was amazing. Even cooler was the conversation Ruco and I had in the car on the way home. During the service, God convicted both Ruco and I about the same thing! I started thinking in the service about the passions God has given me in my own life. He has given me a sincere and raw passion for Africa, for AIDS orphans, and for children. He has lit my heart on fire for the needs that surround that continent. I can lie in my bed and get so excited about being in Africa. Ruco and I can talk for hours about what we want to do there. Our biggest thing is meeting needs. We feel that its not just enough to spread the gospel...you have to meet practical needs in lives...clean water, medications, food, clothing! I think, how can people not get shaken about the millions of people dying of AIDS or the orphans without families? But God really spoke to me tonight...I have had everything backwards!! It IS about meeting needs and helping people, but FIRST and foremost it is about drawing people near to Him!! It is an AMAZING thing to be able to help someone, but what good is that really if that person doesnt know Christ??? My first passion is for the Lord. Ruco and I were saying that there is the most amazing joy that comes from listening to our CDs in the morning before work and praying together at the end of the night. In speaking everyday with the Lord, my soul is filled up with joy unspeakable! It is an amazing joy that I will never get from Africa. Being in Africa and helping people is NOT going to fill up my soul. Even Ruco could never provide the joy that I get from being in the Lords presence. Nothing else compares even remotely. How can we go to Africa with the "do-gooder" attitude and help people with our passion for Africa first? It cant be first. Our relationship with Jesus is our first passion and from that, he has given us hearts for Africa and for providing needs. We cant put our other passions, as great as they may be, before our passion for seeing people come to Christ. As I was sharing these things with Ruco on the way home, he said God was filling him with the exact same convictions. Our first purpose in life is to bring people to Christ. Thats it, thats our whole reason for being here. God has given us these passions for people and issues in Africa, but these passions were NEVER intended to precede our passion for Him. Nothing else in life, no matter how good, is ever to precede our first love.