100%

God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. – Psalm 53:2

I can’t stop thinking about the solar eclipse we experienced one week ago today.  People keep bringing it up and reminders keep showing up around me.  Just today Bible Gateway sent me an email with an article titled, Readers Turn to the Bible to Understand the 2017 Solar Eclipse.  In it they stated:

• There was a 4000% increase on the word “eclipse” searched for in their online Bible and a 3500% spike in searches for “moon.”
• On the day of the eclipse, the top four search keywords were: sun, eclipse, love, and moon.

Yes, people all over America were looking to the Bible for answers to the phenomenon happening in the sky.  That’s awesome in God’s eyes!  Psalm 53:2 tells us that God is looking down from heaven in search for people who understand Him and seek Him.   

Something else in my inbox, just below the Bible Gateway email, though, really got me thinking.  It was an email from my daughter that contained a string of eclipse pictures she had taken while in Wyoming, in the “path of totality.”

I had thought it was ridiculous for her to drive four hours to Wyoming, with at least twice that time spent stuck in traffic, when my town would experience 94% of the eclipse.  I was too busy to drop everything and go on an adventure, so I never even bothered to ask God if this was something He wanted me to do.  So “watch eclipse” became just one more thing to check off of Monday’s overstuffed To-Do list.

But comparing her pictures to mine, I realize that we had a completely different experience. The difference between night and day, literally.  While she jumped for joy and shouted with her friends in total darkness, I squinted in the sun, needing a borrowed pair of “eclipse glasses” to even realize that something was going on.  Her day became night.  My day only dimmed slightly.  God used a string of pictures to illustrate an important truth. 

God wants 100%!  He wants all your heart, all your ways, all your plans, all your life. 

94% may sound like a lot, but like my eclipse experience, it doesn’t even come close to the experience of 100%.  It’s simply not enough.  Inviting Him into some areas of our lives and excluding Him from others, asking Him to help us with some of our plans but keeping control of others, is holding back too much. 

My daughter decided to seek the fullness of the eclipse.  When she did, she experienced its brilliance and made lasting, priceless memories.  Yes, it took effort and sacrifice to get there and enormous patience to travel back home.  But when I asked her “Was it worth it?”  Without hesitating, she shouted “Yes!  I’d go again in a heartbeat!”  

That’s the heartbeat God is looking for: a heart with an “all-in” attitude, fully awake to the abundant life He has planned for us (John 10:10).  The steps are quite simple.  

One decision at a time…one day at a time…one life…given 100% to God leads to the most adventurous life we could ever imagine.

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