So, we decided to name our newest car Gloria after the Hippo from the film Madagascar. Gloria is a Grand Tourneo Connect and she is huge allowing plenty of space for our family and the baggage luggage that we bring with us when we travel. You can get some sense of the size of the car from this picture of Gloria parked next to our Micra, which strangely hasn’t got a name (although I do sometimes refer to it as our Mr Bean car!) A friend of mine recently needed a lift home with his bike and so I dropped all the back seats and put his bike inside and drove him home. Believe it or not, we even get better fuel economy from Gloria than we do from the Micra.
People who see our Tourneo are constantly amazed at its size and what we can fit in. For a car, it is huge!
A few days ago, I was walking back to where I had parked and when I got there this is what I saw. My huge car looked tiny next to this larger than average van.
Ironically I had just had a discussion with someone about idolatry and the way that we can make things bigger and more important than God.
It’s really easy to fall into the trap of only celebrating and pointing to our own accomplishments rather than to God. Perhaps you have heard some of these,
My church is amazing.
I am a part of an amazing project housing homeless people.
We gave thousand s of pounds to charities last year.
I do amazing work for God.
Do we elevate our service for God above our relationship with him? Which of the two should be of greatest importance?
Imagine if you had a friendship where you ran lots of projects in the name of your friend but that you actually rarely talked to them. Imagine if they came to talk with you because that was what they really wanted but you refused because you were too busy running projects to please them.
What does God really want from us?
The greatest command he gives is for us to love him and out of our loving relationship flows the second command which is to love one another as we love ourselves.
For some of us, it may be time to press pause on our busyness in order to reflect on our lives and how we are living in order to truly make God the biggest thing in our lives.
God should be of the greatest importance in our lives, but is he?
