Don’t Be Devoted to a Cause

During a time when our country is up-in arms over this cause or that cause….I though this quote from Oswald Chambers was fitting:

Paul (after he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus) was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid, personal overmastering relationship to Jesus Christ…Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s, he saw nothing else, he lived for nothing else.

I have friends and colleagues and family members who have opinions on the “causes” of today’s society. The Women’s March from last Saturday; the black movement; the police movement; abortion and pro-life movements; defunding Planned Parenthood; child abandonment; orphan care; adoption….the list goes on and on.

We stand in our corners and shout at our neighbors. Or our Facebook friends. We act like children: fighting over every little thing. I told my little fighters just this morning: Do you all need to go to a corner and just look at each other? Will that help you not to fight?

I have my opinions. I have my personal convictions on abortion, pro-life, Planned Parenthood, the black movement, police shootings, the Women’s March, adoption and orphan care. I will stand-up and say what I believe if you ask me. I will occasionally share a post on Facebook or write my thoughts on Instagram, but there is something to be said about “causes.”

Our Bible doesn’t ask us to take up a cause, our Bible says our most devoted thing is to get right with God. To maintain the abiding relationship requires a lot of devotion. For me, practically speaking, it requires a lot of my mental energy. I am all for standing up for the voiceless, and I believe Biblically speaking we are to aid the poor and fatherless….but at what cost?

I can’t engage with the political and social movements of my day and still maintain a right relationship with God. I just don’t have the mental or emotional energy to do so. The things that must go are my opinions. I still have them, I just don’t share them.

Are my energies (and maybe time and money) spent on agendas and social issues or a right relationship with God? Paul was consumed with one thing: his relationship with God. Many of the great evangelists, world-changing missionaries, and devoted Christians are not the ones holding picket signs.

They are the ones hidden in their prayer closets at 5am pouring their heart out to God. The ones who will make the most difference won’t be the ones with arguments on Facebook. It will be the ones reading their Bible at night, memorizing Scripture in the car-pool line, and bent over their desk during the lunch break with a pen and the Word of God.

Those who are abiding in Christ (above all other things) will matter in the end. And maybe, like Paul, make the biggest different and change the world. Don’t be devoted to a cause, be devoted to abiding.  So I’m going to keep believing and speaking up when it is asked of me, but when I’m not asked to share my opinion I’ll keep silent. I’ll open my Bible and pray to my God. I’ll seek for Him to restore me. I’ll work on my connection to Him.

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