The concept of giving my best to God was implanted in my heart while I was in a Bible study class with Pastor John D. Clark that was directed toward the youth. I didn’t realize that any rebelliousness, wrong thoughts or wrong decisions were all against God. How can one be pleasing to God while doing things that He hates? After reading the book written by Pastor John, Solomon’s Wisdom, my life took a dramatic change. I began to see the importance of the simple things such as offering to help my parents, watching my tone of voice, and making decisions that would be pleasing to God. I began to do things whole-heartedly, the only way that would be approving to God, and I began to find real peace.
This entire world is longing for true and lasting happiness, but humans are vainly pursuing their own ways and are refusing to give their best to God. Some may not apply all of their effort, such as in school, because they are too worried about what others may think. Children want to do their best, but many are finding themselves trapped in a place where they cannot be who they sincerely want to be. They are also becoming engrossed with the rebellious crowd that’s prohibiting them from making the right decisions. They are no longer free to be themselves but are pulled in every direction the crowd leads. For example, a consequence of not performing to one’s full potential in school leads to a career choice that may be one’s second or third best that God had planned. Examples such as this have robbed numerous teenagers of the happiness they could have acquired if they had done their best.
The world today is targeted mainly around youth. Billboards, radio stations, and television programs are promoting the wrong ideas and cruelly leading the younger generations into wrong pathways. The commercials use picturesque displays to entice the young, when in actuality they are promoting evil. The commercial doesn’t project the real picture. Have you ever seen a cigarette commercial showing an old man at the age of fifty dying of lung cancer in the hospital, leaving his wife as a widow or his children fatherless? I know that no one can give his or her best to God by continually abusing his or her body with drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol.
For the most part, teenagers of today are giving in to awful things that do not allow them to give their best to God. Young girls and guys are “going out” with nearly everyone. They aren’t waiting for the best person that God will give to them, and, as a consequence, they are displeasing God. I know saints of God who stayed innocent while they were young. For example, a lady named Sister Betty once saw a boy named Brother Earl getting onto a bus while she was in the seventh grade. She had the thought, “this is the boy I would like to marry.” Several years passed and Brother Earl came looking for Betty’s older sister. Eventually Sister Betty and Brother Earl began seeking the Lord together, visiting saints’ houses, attending prayer meetings, and getting in touch with God. They never considered that “dating” because they were too busy reading the Bible and talking about the Lord. God united their hearts and they were married. They have now been married for thirty-two years. Another example is a young woman who lived in the 1930’s and saw a man’s signature, yet she had never met him or heard about this man previously. However, she automatically knew that he was the man she was going to marry. Sister Dale was her name, and she did marry that man. The immorality of giving ones self before marriage has set in and now it’s almost unimaginable to believe that in the past it was a disgrace not to wait for your soul mate.
Many people are having children before they are married and are being unfaithful to their spouses; therefore, they are not showing God their best. Their lives will be wasted with regrets; they will suffer heartaches that could be avoided if they would only give God their all and wait on Him.
By giving myself to God, I know that I will find the secret, or the “A plan,” that God wants to give everyone. God cannot go along with people who are not following after His way. If the multitudes living today could only comprehend that one day of their life could change the way they spend eternity, wouldn’t they want to give their best to God everyday? I desire to do my very best in every situation so that when I reach that judgment day God will be pleased with me, and I will be able to live with the faithful for all eternity.
Rebekah Embry
5/1/00