10 Items or LessI’m a very impatient person, especially when it comes to going shopping. My wife drags me to Wal-Mart every week, and I go kicking and whining the whole way. It’s not that I hate shopping, I just know that it’s a black hole for my time. There’s no such thing as a short trip to Wal-Mart for us. Oh, and spending lots of money on things that aren’t fun doesn’t help either.

Sometimes I treat my relationship with God like a trip to Wal-Mart. I feel like every time I don’t sin, God puts “credits” into my account, which I can use to buy blessings at the “God-Mart”. So I become more focused on not sinning than on my relationship with my creator, and even that is motivated by selfishness. I’m not sure when it happened for me, but I think it was shortly after conversion. I have theory that almost every Christians’ walk with God slips into this state sometime or another. I’m not saying that God wants us to be disobedient, but we can’t make obedience our god. When I find myself in this place, I’m concentrating so hard on obeying that I forgo reading God’s word or praying altogether.

If you’re like me, in the God-Mart, perusing the wares, trying to use your good behaviour credits, stop it. God is so much bigger than blessings, bigger than stuff, and bigger than we can imagine. He wants to have a relationship with us that’s built upon more than just following the rules. It’s not too late to get out of God-Mart. I recommend the 10 items or less lane, it’s usually faster. Unless you get that person who always seems to get in front of me with like 200 items, but never gets turned away. Where’s the self checkout?