Those who know me best know I love solitude. I love times to pray, reflect, and to write. Unfortunately life has many distractions to keep us from solitude, prayer, and reflection.
Over the last five days I entered the freeway of life in the fast lane. Meetings, travels, church events, and following our kids to their sports activities. The days started early and ended late.
Many mornings I woke up groggy not wanting to get up. Each day I stayed under the covers as long as possible wanting more sleep. Each day, when I finally got out of bed, I had to hit the ground running. Each morning I planned on sitting down to pray and meditate on scripture. Day after day I found myself running as fast as I could just to get to the next thing and the next thing never included prayer and reflection.
This certainly manifested itself especially with my family. Easily angered and frustrated. Irritated by other drivers on the roads. Lack of joy. Anxiety from trying to get to the next event with no time to spare. Impatience. Much of my lie over those days did exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.
Yesterday was no different. We finally made it home last night at 10:00 p.m. and all I wanted to do was get into bed. I fell asleep immediately planning to sleep all night.
At 2:30 a.m. I awoke. I tried to go back to sleep but finally got up deducing that perhaps God wanted me to get up to spend some time with Him. I knew it had been days since I had slowed down long to enough linger in His presence. My heart broke when I looked in my journal and saw how long it had been.
Shamed, I repented and asked God to restore me. I poured my heart out in prayer for my family, flock, and friends. Time did not matter. Eventually I went back to bed but not before really sitting before the Lord.
I wonder if my experience is shared by anyone else. I wonder if there are people reading this who love the Lord but have gotten so busy they are no longer slowing down to sit before Him in prayer and meditation of scripture. I wonder if anyone out there feels spiritually depleted because they are running on fumes of empty tanks spiritually instead of being revived and refreshed from daily time sitting before the Lord.
This is so fundamental to our relationship with the Lord. It is elementary stuff. Basic Christianity. Bible 101. Entry level discipleship material. Christians are taught to have quiet times, or if you like, devotions.
Though we know this with our heads, how often do we allow life to crowd out those times. Things like phone calls, text messages, emails, Facebook, work, television, school, and the list goes on of all the things that can distract us and rob our time sitting with the Lord.
I am ashamed because I know better. Good intentions are no substitute for actually slowing down to linger with the Lord in private prayer and devotional reading. There is no substitute.
Those days I missed with the Lord are gone. I cannot go back and recapture them. There are no do overs. Those are encounters with God I missed out on. That does not mean I have to stay in that condition.
No. I start anew today. While I am not recommending 2:30 a.m. prayer sessions as normal, I am saying that we must fight, claw, scrap, defend, and stand our ground for our times to sit with the Lord. Nothing must become important. TIME SITTING WITH THE LORD MUST BE OUR PRIORITY. I wrote in my journal this morning as a prayer, "Sleep eludes me. Sleep is not important. Seeking You is imperative." I want time to sit with the Lord even it means sleeping less.
I got distracted. Distracted doing some good things. Many of them even included serving the Lord. Serving the Lord can never substitute for time spent with the Lord.
Take the time to sit with Him today. Make no more excuses. Do not squander this day with good intentions. Fight fort the time to be alone with God today. Do it on your lunch hour. Go to the park and sit with Him. Turn off the television and get away from your family for awhile and sit with the Lord. Open your Bible, read slowly and reflect deeply. Pray without being rushed. Take the time to enjoy Him. Drink deeply from His presence and refresh your souls in Him as you sit with Him. It is the best time of our days.
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