by Donna L. Watkins
© 2006 Donna L. Watkins - Gray Catbird - Bluebird Cove
What are your days like? Do you run from morning to night? What kind of things are you saying to yourself all day? How much joy are you experiencing? Do you feel peaceful at any point in your day?
I'm convinced that your answers can easily be determined by how much time you spend alone with God.
I am a doer so it is easy for me to get caught up in the flurry of activity, but I have learned after many classrooms and tests that I simply can't feel peace in my day or have joy in my walk without time with the Lord each day. I'm not talking about a legalistic or ritualistic exercise.
There's a knowing in my heart that this world is too full of the devil's works to enter it without time with my Lord. I have to suit up with the armor before I can have a successful day that has a balanced amount of work and play with a continual theme of meditation on His Word. It's like filling the car up with gas before heading out to the country. If you're going to make the drive a pleasant experience and get done what you planned to do on the trip, you don't forget to get gas.
There is something about the stillness of morning that allows the thoughts of God to enter into my heart more readily. It's like the quiet allows me to hear Him. Listen to Him before the hum of the electronic home gears up, the phone begins ringing, and the people who want to push your buttons show up.
I have allowed the Enemy to deceive me many times into thinking that I will have my time with the Lord mid-morning when I need a break, or after lunch when I can use a recharge, and before I know it I'm crawling into bed picturing God still waiting for me in the chair where I have my daily time with Him. Satan is here to kill, steal and destroy and he is like a roaring lion who will devour your life if you let him. God gives us the armor to defend ourselves.
Smith Wigglesworth says, "When we get God's Word in our hearts, it absolutely changes us in everything. And as we feast on the Word of the Lord, eat and digest the truth, and inwardly eat of Christ, we are changed every day from one state of glory to another. You will never find anything else but the Word that takes you there, so you cannot afford to put aside that Word."
Our human mind doesn't desire time with a God we cannot understand fully. We want to have control in all areas of our lives, and God is something we cannot control and cannot fathom, so the human nature tends to avoid what is considered complicated. We were never designed to be able to figure out God. He is there for us and he offers us power that we cannot comprehend. It doesn't all have to make sense.
Isaiah 40:28-31 says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding, no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint."
Don't let your life get weary. Take what God offers to us in the power of His Word. You don't have to understand it all. Just take it as Truth and take His love for you as fact. Wouldn't you like to soar through each day with renewed strength? It's available to you. Spend time with your Creator each day asking what He wants you to do today. You do not need to be stressed out and overworked. Jesus got all His work done at what we think of now as a slow pace. You can do all that God wants you to do without scurrying ..... and after all is said and done, is there really any reason to do all the things that He hasn't told you to do? What lasting value will it have?
Look back and re-evaluate what's important and plan your future accordingly. If you don't, you will run out of gas far from where you desire to be.
Prayer
God I ask you to slow me down! I will make a commitment to meet with you each morning and ask what you want me do with each day. Help me to see the priorities and to discard the busyness that I've added to my life. Let me focus on the pace of Jesus and see the real value of each day not based in how many things I can accomplish. Show me Kingdom value as I choose between tasks on the To Do list. As I trim down and simplify my lifestyle, let me be a living heritage of who You are to those around me. In Jesus precious name, I ask. Amen.
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