God Rules, or Does He?

I John 3:19 Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.

Proverbs 27:19 As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.

I spend my days driving from patient home to patient home. I’ve never really enjoyed driving. I’ve always been more of the “go along for the ride” kind of girl. Turns out, I really don’t hate driving. I truly love my new job. I love the patients. I love my colleagues. I love cruising along singing praise songs with the radio, and I love the sites. My husband has jokingly said that I have tunnel vision when I drive, but I have learned to be much more cognizant of my surroundings now that I am spending all day driving. A few days ago, I noticed a truck beside me. The rear window was covered with a variety of stickers. The first few stickers that caught my eye were condescending and full of foul language. However, in the upper left hand corner, the very first sticker read, “God Rules.”

At first glance, I laughed out loud. I shouldn’t judge, but my natural first instinct was to think, “God is NOT ruling you. If He was ruling, you wouldn’t have all of those other ugly stickers with all those ugly words.” Yes, I know that was wrong of me, but I couldn’t help it. I’m guilty. I made a judgment based on the cover of the book, and I didn’t even take a peek at what was on the inside. That was wrong. I know that it was.

But here’s the thing, as Christians, the people we come in contact with daily may only ever get a look at the cover…a tiny glimpse of who we are. The only image one may see is of us behaving badly…snapping at someone who has gotten on our last nerve, responding grumpily to a situation, or showing bitterness or anger. And if that is all they ever see, then that person would also think, “God is NOT ruling her!” Or we could show them who we really are…sons and daughters of the King of kings. We could be intentional in our responses and make sure that we are bringing the salt and light into our interactions.

Is God really ruling? How will others know that God truly rules in our lives? That old song answers it best. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. Our pastor has challenged us many times with the truth that we can gauge our love for Christ by how much we love others. Love isn’t a noun, y’all. It’s an action word. We can say I love you all day long, but if we don’t back it up with actions, it doesn’t hold much water.

I’ve messed up so many times! Oh, I could write for hours giving examples of my many goof ups that would make it appear that God isn’t ruling in my life. I’m glad I read the stickers on that truck the other day. I’m also very grateful that our good, good Father sees my heart. He knows my intentions are meant to be good, even when my human nature messes things up. But I am also thankful for this bold reminder that even though my Father knows me, those around me may not truly see that God is ruling my heart if the only glimpse they see is the ugly stickers on the outside that I sometimes allow to sneak out. I’m going to work on making sure that God truly is ruling in my life…not just in my head and heart, but in my actions!