A Zealous Life

There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.  Isaiah 9:7

The Hebrew word for zeal is qin' ah and means "ardour, jealousy - to excite to jealous anger."

After reading about this, I sat and thought, "What am I truly zealous about?"  The first thing that popped up was my marriage. 

A quick and simple example of this: A couple of years ago I was on Facebook.  I had been for quite some time.  I had a long list of friends and was having fun interacting with them.  The problem?  I was spending WAY too much time with it.  My husband became worried and jealous - worried that my picture was now online and jealous that I was spending what seemed to be more time online than with him.  As I pondered this, it hit me at that moment that my marriage was ever so much more important to me than Facebook, so I deleted my account.  I didn't even take the time to notify friends and family.  I hit delete and then permanent delete, which erases everything.  Some people thought my husband was being overly protective of me and I was being overly zealous for our relationship, but years ago I sat down with God and determined that I would never let anything of this world cause division in our marriage. Was it worth it?  You bet it was!  We are even closer than before, if you can imagine that possibility, but I assure you it exists.

Once again God has brought me back to my relationship with Him being a type of marriage.  Is my zeal for our relationship as strong, or better yet-stronger, than my zeal for my marriage relationship?  Perhaps not, but I want it to be.  The more I study, pray, watch and learn, the more I trust.  The more I trust, the closer we become. 

After 36 years of marriage, my husband and I have people say we look and act a lot alike.  Just another reason to compare our relationship with God with marriage.  The longer we spend time with someone, the more of their attributes we take on. 

Lord, I want to spend so much time with You that I begin to look and act more and more like You until I reach the place where others see only You and are drawn to Your love and compassion through me.  Make me zealous for Your kingdom.


Galatians 2:20 - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.