When It's Right to Suffer Wrong

My Pastor preached a wonderful message from Psalm 69 titled "The Zeal of Thine House" from verse 9.

It spoke right to me, as usual.

I am afraid I have been *accused* of being over-zealous in my relationship with God.

So, just to set the record straight...

I am.

Let me explain something to the world at large: You don't know what my praise is worth.

Maybe you question how and why I live like I do, how and why I can love Him like I do.

And maybe it seems like I've gone overboard, off the deep end.

Guilty.

And I fear it will only get worse.

My whole life was changed. Every aspect of my life, my desires, my dreams, my plans, changed forever by a single act of unbridled love for me.

My life was changed at Calvary when that crimson stream of blood flowed over my sin-filled heart and washed me clean.

That is why I talk of Him, that is why I think on Him, that is why I serve Him.

This zeal inside of me is consuming. And when I break the box of my praise and spill it on His feet in worship to the One who gave His all for me, you have no idea just how much it is worth to me. You have no idea where He brought me from, how far He had to reach to find me.

It amazes me the way the world works. If I were a Georgia Bulldog fan (which I'm not--I'm an LSU Tiger fan!) and I had stickers all over my car, and dressed in Georgia Bulldog fan wear everyday, and went to every game and screamed from the stands, well, that would be normal. No one would think a thing in the world about it or me for doing it.

But because I have built a relationship with God, I'm odd, maybe even crazy. Imagine that.

It is hard for anyone to understand my heart, unless they have a like heart. And if, to the world at large, I am a freak, someone to point their fingers at and stare, that's OK. I'll endure the wrong to live right.

Because while others are saying "How strange she is to live as she does," I am saying "How sad they live as they do, so empty when my life is so full."

My Jesus, I am burdened today. I have read Your Word time and again, and I know this is the way You said it would be. And yet it makes me pause to think that this joyous life I have can cause someone else to question. Still I press on. Toward that mark. I am consumed by the "zeal" of Your house, and I am not ashamed.