Day 105!

Today is the 105th day of my Cipro antibiotic side effects mess and I am doing really good. I would say that I am 95% recovered. I have been pushing through all the side effects working out with increasing intensity for the last month in a pool and then for the first time yesterday I rode a bike! I have been itching to get back up and going again on a bike and finally got to that point. I rode 8.7 miles at an average speed of 16.7 miles per hour which was better than I thought I would be able to do.

It has been a long hard journey that I could really do without having to repeat again. I have wrestled through muscle tremors and spasms, muscle weakness, chest pain, tendon pain, joint pain, mental fog, depression, and hallucinations all caused by the fluoroquinolone antibiotic I took- Cipro which is similar to Avelox and Levaquin. ( see article http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/20/fluoroquinolones-side-effects.aspx   )

I have kept up with other people who have experienced side effects to fluoroquinolone antibiotics and began to realize I have improved quicker than other's who have had these severe side effects and I think it has to do with the 3 things that I focused upon for recovery. I discovered along the way that the people who had experienced severe side effects to fluoroquinolone antibiotics and then took additional medications to treat the side effects actually got worse with some of those never recovering and being permanently disabled so I determined from the start my solution would not include additional medications to solve the problem caused by medication.

The thing that I began doing from the start was praying and begging God to heal me because it was traumatic to go from being very physically active to being completely unable to walk in a matter of a few days. Three weeks into the ordeal the elders from church prayed over me and anointed me with oil asking for God's healing. I would have been very satisfied with instant miraculous healing but it did not happen that way. As I spent time thinking about my situation from God's point of view I began to realize some interesting things. I could imagine God looking at me and saying 'of course you are having problems, you put a stupid chemical concoction in your body that is known to cause problems because you wanted to feel better quickly.' This made me realize that there are times it is better for God not to heal us and instead to allow us to wrestle with what we've done to ourselves because quiet honestly sometimes the only way I can learn something is through experiencing the natural consequences of what I've done. 

This led me to realize that there are times that I/we put our faith and trust in something other than God. In this particular case I had put my trust in a medication to heal me. It had never even occurred to me to deal with the spiritual side of taking medicine at the drop of a hat, that is it had never occurred to me until I had no choice but to be forced to contemplate how different things would have been if I had spent some time in prayer before I did anything else. For us in the modern United States we like to put our faith in science and medicine before we put our faith in God. All in all this experience has shaken me to the core because I thought I was doing really good at putting my faith in God and instead God has helped me to see how far I need to go to honestly put my faith in Him.

Twice in the first week of dealing with the extreme side effects I encountered a secondary problem of having extreme reverse reactions to pain relieving medications which produced greatly magnified pain instead of alleviating pain. I discovered this apparently happens because of the way in which the Cipro antibiotic changes your brain chemistry. This launched me into a quest to figure out how to get better apart from taking any type of medication. In fact it has now been around 90 days since I have any medicine of any kind at all and I plan to keep it that way. I had a chiropractor who for years told me God did not make our bodies to need medicine to function correctly but I did not fully understand what he was trying to tell me until now. Consequently I began to seek out what would help my body function as good as it possibly could so that the amazing work God did of creating my body and my immune system could be maximized.

I began visiting my chiropractor which provided some improvement but the most dramatic improvement came about as the result of visiting an alternative allergy specialist who utilized a number of non invasive and non medical techniques to help eliminate my body's bad reaction to the medication. ( see www.naet.com for more information).  I discovered this group of practitioners when I lived in Colorado and had developed a whole range of debilitating food allergies. An NAET practitioner in Colorado helped to completely eliminate my food allergies and as a side bonus also eliminated my severe allergy to bee stings. It simply involves holding the substance you are reacting to while the practitioner stimulates significant pressure points on your body. When it occurred to me that I was for all practical purposes having an allergic reaction to Cipro I decided I would seek out an NAET practitioner in Houston. After my first visit there was dramatic improvement- it shut down my muscles tremors and spasms. As the NAET practitioner worked with me he discovered that I had been over exposed to a number of things including the metal lead which may have contributed to why the Cipro caused such a severe reaction. The upside is that I may come out better on the far side of this whole ordeal than when I started!

The temptation would be to say the NAET treatment is amazing and begin to elevate it to the same status as we currently tend to elevate medicine but the reality is that the NAET practitioners are simply working with our body to help stimulate the process that God set in motion within our body. The miracle here is not the treatment, the miracle is God's amazing process of creating our body so that it can heal itself. The mistake we make with medicine is that we believe that we can only be healed with medicine- which is why I am opposed to our current nationalized health care because it works from the assumption that all that everyone needs to be healthy is an array of medicines.

I have a new found commitment to  continue to discover ways to help my body work how God designed it to work instead of working against it. A few things I have discovered have to do with diet; stay away from Canola oil- it's very bad news, stay away from artifical sweeteners including Splenda- our body does not have any natural enzymes to break them down, stay away from white flour, stay away as much as possible from processed foods...But I also am at a new starting point of discovering how many ways there in which I don't put God as Lord of my life and instead put other things as the Lord of my life- I think that is called idolatry.

Often we think the reason we need to put God as the Lord of our Life has to do with an eternity with God in heaven but the reality is that it also has to do with having a better life right now.

What Makes Christianity Different From Any Other Religion?

The Youth Ministry at Sugar Grove has been learning about various world religions by letting 2 of the teens teach a class each week about a pair of religions. Some of my kids have taught some of those classes so we have had some fun conversations at home about various religions as well as about Christianity in the last couple of weeks. During this same time period I have also had a great time reconnecting with a 'kid' from one of my youth groups who I have not been around in almost 20 years. She has shared with me her horror story about marrying a Mormon guy and the conversations with her bishop questioning her dedication to the Mormon faith since she wasn't having enough babies.

These conversations recall an ah ha moment I had about 18 years ago when I was teaching a religions class with a group of teens. As I taught through this class the question that began to surface in my mind was "What makes Christianity any different than any other religion in the world?" I had grown up learning that Christianity was about going to church on Sunday, being baptized by being immersed in water and saying the right words, not using a piano to worship God, and a few other things like this. As I researched and taught through this religions class it started to stand out to me that all religions were similar; you believe something about a deity, you have a set of requirements to do in a formal setting, and you have a set of requirements to do in life. And why do you do these things? So that the deity or the higher force will be happy with you and move you to a better place.  In other words... you earn your way into the presence of the deity or a better place. The deity is important but ultimately it is what you do, not what the deity does.

The 'kid' from my youth group told me when she first married the Mormon guy that Mormonism has a much better set of rules than Christianity- their rules were much more concise than the rules she had grown up with in a Christian church- so that was why she was converting to Mormonism. This was for me another ah ha moment. If picking a religion is nothing more than finding the set of rules and beliefs that work best for you then what is the point? If it is simply about a set of rules and beliefs then the core of the religion is actually nothing more than a myth- the power of that religion is not in the reality of what it believes but simply in the rules you must follow.

In the class I had been teaching I had to confront the falseness of what I had been taught growing up- that Christianity was about doing the right things and going to the right church. This is not Christianity. It is a humanistic offshoot of true Christianity. True Christianity is different than any other religion in the world. True Christianity is not about what we do (even though we like to make it about what we do), it is about what Jesus did.

God made the world including us. Sin entered the world and separated us from God. God then began a process to ensure that we had the chance to once again be with him- to again walk with him in the garden. This process centered upon Jesus Christ satisfying the demands of sin. What is my role in this process? Accepting the gift He has offered. Period.

Viewing Christianity as a set of rules cheapens all that Jesus did. It is much easier to view Christianity as a set of rules. It is much easier to think that if we go to our priest on Friday night and confess our sins we are ok. It is much easier to think if we are immersed in water then we are ok. It is much easier to view Christianity as a legal requirement than a relationship. However the consequences for viewing Christianity as a set of rules are immense. We take the power from God and put it in our hands. And since we are not God we make our religion no better than any other religion and we end up in nothing more than a pissing match arguing about whose set of rules is best.

Christianity is not about rules; go to church, be baptized, take communion, don't do this, do this... But on the other side of this pendulum we also make a mistake in thinking that we can detach Christianity from boundaries, behaviors, and beliefs. We go to church on a Sunday morning not to satisfy the legal requirements of being in a worship service but to gain and give encouragement to other believers as we focus upon our God through worship. We are baptized not to meet the minimum required standards to enter heaven but to express through an outward symbol the passion within our hearts to accept the gift of grace offered to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism does not save us, Jesus Christ saves us.

What makes Christianity different than other religions? It's not what we do, it's what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Disciples

Since January Sugar Grove's elders and ministers have stopped their normal meetings and instead have been focused upon praying and seeking God's guidance about what He desires Sugar Grove to be and to do. There has been a great deal of prayer and as time has gone along more and more discussion. One thing that God has continued to bring back to our attention has been Jesus' words in Matthew 28  "...All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of  all nations..."

Disciples... what is a disciple? Freedictionary.com tells us that a disciple is:

a. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.

b. An active adherent, as of a movement or philosophy.

 

In the context of Matthew 28 Jesus command is to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.  The question Sugar Grove's leadership have wrestled with is two fold; are we ourselves being shaped into being Christ's disciples? Are we going and making disciples of others? 

Another question that is being asked is how do we know if we are a disciple of Christ. Traditionally our measuring stick of discipleship has focused upon a few external actions; Do we go to church every time the door is opened? Do we study the Bible? Do we believe the right things about God, the Bible, and his church?

However the problem with using these as the measuring stick for being a disciple of Christ is that even Judas Iscariot meet these criteria. He believed the right things. He walked the road with Jesus. He was there every time the 'doors' were opened. He knew and did everything right but it did not make it into his heart. 

A disciple is someone who allows the teachings of their master to penetrate their heart and in turn impact every single dimension of their life.

The Hand of God at Work

Earlier this week I took my two girls to Lubbock Christian University to register them for the fall. We had an eventful time getting to Lubbock just barely missing a multi car pile up followed by getting food poisoning at an Arby's in Abilene. The next day was a whirlwind meeting with admissions, recruiters, advisers, registrars, and financial aid. It was a great day even though the girls felt like death warmed over from the food poisoning. By that evening it had warmed to 93 degrees but the next morning the weather changed and it was 34 degrees with a 35 mile per hour wind.

In this midst of this dramatic weather change we packed up the car to head home. It was cloudy, cold, and windy. About two hours into the drive we encountered a detour with a bridge under construction at hwy 84 and Interstate 20. The detour had us get on the freeway going west, exit the freeway, u turn, and get back on the freeway going east bypassing the bridge construction. It was in the construction detour that things did not work out so well.

We followed the detour and exited the freeway behind an 18 wheel truck. As we approached the stop sign to turn and go under the freeway there was a flurry of detour signs including large orange flags on top of the stop sign giving us a multitude of warnings and instructions. As the truck in front of us slowly pulled out and turned right onto the narrow 2 lane farm road we pulled up to the stop sign to turn left. A second or two after we got to the stop sign a new white Suburban pulled up to the stop sign across from us. My daughter, who was driving, asked whose turn it was and I told her I think it is our turn. She sat there for a moment looking at the white Suburban and I told her "it's our turn so we can go". She hesitated for a moment more and then pulled out. As we began our turn left under the bridge we heard a short honk followed by the nose of our car smashing into the side of an old Suburban that was coming down the road at about 50 miles per hour. The nose of our car sunk into the side of suburban which grabbed our car and spun us like a top- we spun almost a complete 360 in the narrow 2 lane road without bumping either curb. The old Suburban screeched to a stop in the left lane midway under the bridge. We had both stayed on the road and missed the bridge columns as well as the culverts that were on either side of the road under the bridge.

Scary, scary, scary! We quickly took stock and realized we were ok but the car was injured. We discovered it would still drive so we pulled it off into a gas station and tried to take in what had happened. As we looked back at the stop sign we realized the one thing we had missed in the flurry of flags and detour directions was the small white sign that said 'cross traffic does not stop'. We spent the next hour processing things with the police,  our insurance company, and trying to decide if we would need a tow truck. We discovered the nearest place to rent a car was 45 miles away so we made the car drivable enough to get it to Abilene by pulling off the parts that were hanging down into the front wheel.

After dropping the car off at the body shop, getting a rental car, and eating some lunch we were finally back on the road again. As we drove we processed what happened talking about the importance of never listening to anyone else in the car who is giving you bad advice and instead making driving decisions based upon your own observations. But the more significant conversation centered around the spiritual issues at hand. We talked about how both of us had been prompted to be in prayer about our trip home and had prayed asking God to give us a safe trip. My daughter had prayed asking God to keep us out of a wreck which prompted her to ask why God allowed us to get in a wreck even though she had asked him to keep us out of a wreck. As we continued to talk and process we began to realize that although God had not kept us out of a wreck he may have worked to save our lives. If we had pulled out a fraction of a second earlier instead of hitting the side of the old Suburban we would have been been in the path of a big Suburban going 50 miles an hour. It would have most likely t-boned us in the passenger front door where I was sitting. It would then have likely thrown us into the columns on one side of the bridge and knocked the Suburban into the columns on the other side of the bridge causing significant injuries to all of us.

We began to clue in on the holy brain fart that my daughter had after I told her we should be able to go. I remember glancing over at her and wondering why she had frozen up for a second... had she not done that we would have pulled out in front of the Suburban instead of bouncing off the side of the Suburban. It really appears that God used her weakness, freezing up for a second, to compensate for my backseat driving producing a bad wreck instead of a catastrophic collision. Had God completely spared us from the wreck neither my daughter nor I would have learned anything. We would not have realized the significance of what He had spared us from. We would not have learned some valuable lessons about driving and back seat driving. We would have instead continued down the road griping about an old Suburban that was going too fast down a small road and the confusing nature of the signage in the construction zone.

What occurred has the fingerprints of God upon it; using our weakness to reveal His glory, restraining how bad things could have been, and prompting by the Holy Spirit to invite God to work. Pretty cool.

The Difference Between Doing and Being

Over the last few years I have had an ongoing conversation with God that goes something like this... "God, what do you want me to do?" God's response is "I want you to be mine." When this first started a few years back in my prayer time I was a little frustrated because I wanted a concrete 'To Do' list, not a fuzzy 'To Be' list. However as I chewed on what God was telling me I began to kind of understand it. It is easy to do something but it is far more challenging to be something.

Doing is an external action that does not have any bearing upon who you are. Be-ing is at the core of you, it is at the heart and soul of who you are. You can do something that looks good to those around you while still having a putrid heart. Judas Iscariot is a great example of doing with no bearing upon who you are at the core. Way too many modern politicians are another example of doing and saying things externally or publicly while their actions hidden from the public reveal what is going on in their heart as evidenced by a news story that came out this week about a number of political figures in New York state who have been indicted on bribery charges- they told the public they would fix the economy and work for the voter and what they did was work for themself.

This is why God's invitation for me to be His instead of simply doing a few godly things has really challenged me over the last few years. The best way to evaluate how well I am doing at being God's in the depths of my heart is by what I do when no one is watching- when my actions are hidden. It's easy to look good in public. It takes far more work to be good in private in the depths of your heart. God's ultimate desire is to have our heart, not our hands because if he has our heart then our hands will follow.

Over the years I have done a number of things to help me to be God's. And I will be the first one to tell you I'm not perfect at the quest to be God's. I have discovered this quest comes in waves. There are days and weeks and months that I do a great job of letting God be the master of my heart which plays itself out through my actions. But there are other periods where I allow my heart to get cluttered with junk other than belonging to God. During these periods I find my thoughts scattered and the temptation to do and say what I shouldn't strong. Something that has developed significant symbolic meaning for me has been to write a short prayer on a piece of paper and put it in a large metal vase I got from a local import store. The prayer that I write has been consistent for the last 9 years; "God, today I will be yours." followed by the current date. It is not something I do every day, problably because it would lose its meaning and become a daily chore. Instead I only do this symbolic action when I am scattered, off course, and realizing I have not been too concerned with allowing God to have my heart.

An additional bonus of this practice has been to help me realize how often we try to convince ourselves we are acceptable to God because we have done some good things for him. When I was in college a group of Christian guys I hung out with started excusing behavior that was less than stellar by saying God will cut us some slack for what we shouldn't do because we were living good most of the time. The funny thing is we all really believed this. We really thought God would overlook one sin because of a fewgood things we had done. This plays itself out in funny ways. We try to convince ourselves that because we went to church or mass or the revival or whatever else we deem important God will consequently overlook when we do something else that we should not be doing. That is legalism.

Legalism says that God is only conerned with a few external actions so we become focused on those few specific actions or beliefs (that we have chosen) ignoring other items that are often even more significant. We focus on something religious while ignoring the way we treat people, or our lack of ethics, or our obsessession with money or our appearance or food or possessions or sex or power or...

Legalism says that we must make a list of what is a sin and what is not. However sin is not so easily categorized because the heart determines sinfulness, not a list. Think about it: For some Sunday worship is a sinful act because they are only focused upon evaluating if everything was done correctly with no heart of worship given over to God in praise; For a young couple going out on a date  holding hands can be a sinful act if the intention of the hand holding is to ultimatley get the other's clothes off; For a person protecting their family from an armed intruder killing is not a sin unless the intruder runs away and you kill him six months later when you finally track him down.

See the funny fuzzy lines that develop when we start trying to decide what is a sin and what is not a sin? Our problems come when we try to focus upon the external behavior of what we are doing instead of focusing on giving ownership of our heart to God- being God's.

God wants us to daily make a decision to be His. God wants me to daily make the decision to be His. "Dear God, today I will be yours." April 7, 2013.

Understanding God in Genesis

Do you realize your view of God can impact the entirety of your existence. A foundational place to start understanding God is in the book of Genesis and then continuing throughout the Old Testament.

Genesis 1 reveals some amazing things about God. "In the beginning God..." tells us about this god who existed before our beginning and who simply spoke to bring all that we know into being. This is an amazing claim. How could something like this exist? Who is this being? Some people stop right there and say no way- there is no being like this, God is a myth. Others jump in and use Genesis 1 to develop a viewpoint that the world was created in 6 literal days. Both of these see what they want to see through their own cultural, social, and religious bias instead of simply allowing the story to unfold.

 As the story unfolds we see a god who creates everything. Everything!  In Genesis 2 we see a god who creates humans in his image and asks them to fill the earth with offspring as they rule over and subdue it. We see a god who values companionship and who helps those he made to recognize boundaries. Moving into Genesis 3 we see another being come on the scene who seeks to confuse and mislead god's people. We see people who instead of walking daily with their god are now afraid and hide. We see a god who provides consequences and protection.

A decision that has to be made by every person is whether this is god with a little g or a big G. I believe misunderstandings about God's actions in Genesis 3 impact whether a person decides this is a god or if this is their God.

Through the years I have been surprised time and again as I have realized that most people misunderstand what goes on in Genesis 3. Most people have it in their mind that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden because they broke his rules. For these people God is a god of rules and following him means we must follow his rules. This god does not value mercy or relationship, he values rules.

However the reality of what is going on in Genesis 3 can be seen through a few clues. First of all we notice that God made clothes of fur to replace the clothes made out of fig leaves which were now seen as necessary after disobeying God. If God were focused upon rules then we should see no compassion when someone has broken the rules- we should instead see harsh consequences be allowed to unfold... 'you eat the fruit and have your eyes open and realize you are naked and make poky fig leaf clothes then fine, walk around with scratchy underwear!' But we don't see harsh consequences, instead we see God say 'I'm sorry you made this mistake, wear these instead, they will be more comfortable'. 

The second thing we notice is God's reason for sending Adam and Eve from the garden- to get them away from the tree of life. We see God express concern that if they eat from the tree of life in their current state they will live forever with the implication being that they will live forever apart from God. The tree of life is seen again at the end of the book of Revelation when those who have had that removed which separated them from God can once again eat from the tree- in other words with sin removed they can now live forever with God instead of separated from God. So serious is this tree of life that God was willing to kill Adam and Eve if they tried to return to the garden and the tree.
The reason for removal was not punishment for breaking God's rules but protection so that God could develop a plan to fix that which separated us from Him so that once again we could walk in the garden with him.

If God is a god of love and compassion and enormous effort to once again be able to walk with us in the garden then I'm in and excited. If God is just about rules then what's the point because at some point we are all going to mess up and break the rules. This is where the difference in who we understand God to be is important. A god working to bring me back to him can be my big G god anytime. A god making arbitrary rules and then waiting for me to break them so he can punish me will stay in the little g category for most people including me.

I'm looking forward to walking in the garden with a big G God who has spent all of time doing whatever it takes to make sure we are together and not separated forevermore.

The Kingdom of God

Today is the 40th day I have been struggling with the side effects of an antibiotic called Ciprofloxacin. It left me with neurological issues in the muscles in my legs, arms, and chest and swelling in my joints which has made walking difficult and at times impossible.  I have been in constant pain for 40 days and have discovered the hard way that pain killers and muscle relaxers intensify my pain so I have had to seek something other than medicine for relief. But the news of praise to God is that I am improving.

Prayer has played a significant role in my ongoing recovery. I have spent lots of time begging God for healing and relief through prayer. I have been humbled as many people, for whom I am grateful, have lifted me up in prayer. And I was encouraged as the elders anointed me with oil and prayed for God's blessing of healing upon me.

Dealing first hand with what is probably the most serious health issue I have ever had to face left me with with lots of time flat on my back to think and pray and gripe and ponder. In this process I was drawn into consideration of our Hope in Christ and the Kingdom of God. 

Throughout Jesus' ministry he talked about the Kingdom of God. Over and again he would tell about the Kingdom of God. But what exactly is the Kingdom of God?... It is a reality in which God is in charge. It is a reality that currently exists in the hearts of those who believe and accept the message of salvation but that will some day grow to be all encompassing.  It appears that throughout the gospels Jesus is trying to give us a glimpse into what our reality will look like when the Kingdom of God has been fully revealed and implemented. This is our Hope in Christ.

What we see of the Kingdom of God through Jesus ministry on earth is incredible... healing flows freely to anyone who is hurt or injured; food is abundant and good, the focus of life is upon the good of others- not our own self focused interest, nature works with us- not against us...  

Right now we live between the resurrection of Christ and the end of this age when Christ returns. Until the end of this age those that pass from this life go to wait for the resurrection with God. At the time only known to God this age will come to an end which will culminate in our resurrection to a new physical resurrection body in a new heaven and earth where God reigns. I can't wait to experience life in the Kingdom of God- life that is free of pain, tears, hunger, evil, death, and decay.

When we realize where our Hope in Christ is leading there is reason to get excited and to tell others around us about how cool this all is. But we currently live in a world that is damaged by sin. We live in a culture that has falsely believed we can create a utopia here on earth through our own efforts. We have believed that through science or laws or social engineering we can continuously improve life here on earth. The problem is that these things become a god that we worship above the Lord God Almighty.

Jesus spent his time in ministry on this earth proclaiming the Kingdom of God and encouraging everyone to seek first God's Kingdom. It isn't that God intentionally made His Kingdom hard to find or that He has intentionally created a set of entry requirements so difficult that very few will make it. Instead we realize that sin and the entanglements of this world that is currently ruled by the evil one intentionally work to obscure God and deceive us from the truth of Hope in Christ.

I have been amazed at how quickly my mind has been able to jump from optimism and hope in God to despair and temptation to let God out of my sights. Living through 40 days of pain is nothing compared to some people who have endured health problems for years and years but my 40 days experience of disability has given me new insight into the mental challenge that people struggling through extended illness must wrestle with.

This brings to mind the importance of Jesus' focus in his ministry on earth to spread the message of the Kingdom of God. We have to remember the Hope to which Jesus calls us. We have to realize that we will not find fulfillment and perfection in this life. We have to trust that God will correct all wrongs in His Kingdom, not in this life. And we have to encourage each other when this evil world closes in around our heart and our mind and our body.

Jesus came to this earth for just a moment and said let me give you a taste of life in the Kingdom of God. He said try out some healing, experience compassion, absorb mercy, indulge abundant food and drink, watch in awe as nature works with you. You know what?! I'm in. I like what I saw and I want more. I want an eternity of life in God's Kingdom.

However my temptation is to try to create my own happy kingdom. If I am unhappy I quickly try to jump and find something to renew my happiness. I will buy something to make me happy. I will do something to make me happy. I will watch something to entertain me. Or I will take medicine with risks of significant side effects at the drop of a hat to make me feel better. The problem is that there are consequences to all of these actions. There are entanglements that develop and it is these entanglements that can be used by the evil one to obscure our ability to see God and His Kingdom.

Over the last 40 days the Holy Spirit has very faithfully continued to draw my mind back to thinking about God's Kingdom.... Matthew 6:33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.