It Doesn't Profit Anyone to Gain the Whole World and Lose his/her Soul

  The worst thing that can happen to a Christian in my eyes is for her/him to attempt to replace God.  With the constant pressure to fit in, achieve success, or feel loved, it become extremely easy to push God to the side for the promise of personal satisfaction and acclaim.  We get told that money, love, and popularity will make us happy, and who doesn't want to be happy?  I know I do.  What people don't tell you is that happiness is fleeting.  There are a whole spectrum of feelings and happiness is just one of them. It is unrealistic to think that we can stop other feelings from coming.  We let go of reality and try to chase happiness at any cost.  Morals become compromised and then we slip into a place where we no longer remember that we know someone who has everything that we ever wanted in the palm of his hand.   We essentially walk away from the truth to chase after shallow self gratification.  The worst part is that most times the very thing that we walk away from God for we lose.  This includes but is not limited to jobs, friends, family, material things, and fame.  I lost my good reputation, my education, and a man that I loved. Not only can walking away from the savior cost us things, but it can also bring things into our lives that we never wanted.   I not only lost those things, but I gained distrust from my family, debt up to my eyes, single motherhood, and shame like I have never known.  I know now that if it weren't for losing those things I would not have remembered who I was in Christ.  
Because nothing can adequately take the place of God in our lives, everything that we use to replace him falls apart.  Money, relationships, and success were not made to be our God and they can't do the job.  Nothing fits the mold for Christ in our lives.  When God tells us not to put any other God before him he means that.  Everything that God tells us is for our learning so that we won't receive that results that we don't want.  We must look really foolish to God walking away from him for things that we wouldn't even want if we saw the results that they would bring us. It doesn't make any sense for us to run away from what we need for what will destroy us.  
Maybe if I hadn't put other relationships before my relationship with God I would still have those relationships today.  Either way the Lord is showing me that he is everything that I need most.  Anything that he removes from my life is to put something better in its place.  The Bible says that anyone who protects their life will lose it and anyone who loses their life for Christ's sake will gain it.  I would rather give up what this world has to offer me for the things that God has for me than to try to put my desires up as an idol that will just be destroyed anyway.  Only what we do for Christ will last.  Everything else falls away. Thank God he removed the foolishness in my life to show me how special our relationship is.