What About Time
What About Time
What a Glorious week spending time with my granddaughter. She came by herself and repeatedly commented on what made it so special: “There is no competition.” No competition with her brother and sister, her mom, or all the family gathering. Just time with Grandma and Grandpa, one-on-one. No outside interferences.
There wasn’t a need to fix, buy, or get anything, just time and attention. Focused attention. Grateful for anything and everything. Content to be loved.
Hmm.
How often I have forgotten those moments with God. Remembering what it’s like being content to spend time with Him. By taking the time as a gift. Not a requirement to get to know Him but learning what is important to Him. Enjoying the still small things each hour and every day. Things like the sun, the needed rain, unwarranted smiles or hugs. Then there are the birds, one of my favorite things in God’s creation.
For me, the busyness of the days sometimes blurs the time of refreshment. My granddaughter came wanting her bucket filled. The only requirement from me was time.
Focused time.
In Matthew Jesus encourages just that: “focused time.” This is what He says:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 New International Version NIV
Sometimes we don’t realize that when we stop and take that special time there is more than just getting to know God but we gain rest for our souls. We get refocused finding that when we get to know God the load doesn’t get heavier but lighter. We don’t need to strive in our living and loving but we are able to sync up to His direction as He leads and carries the load.
It isn’t that life doesn’t get hard but we are not doing life alone under our own strength. We are able to lean into God because we have gotten to know and trust Him.
“So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10 New International Version (NIV)
We have the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us. When we look to God and depend on Him in the center of our living we have peace even in the midst of a storm.
But, we must choose.
Reading His word, studying who God is and what He loves is key. We can’t follow Him if we don’t know anything about Him. If we only hear “hearsay” about God, we then only know someone’s opinion of Him not firsthand knowledge of Him. We get a skewed version of who He is, what He loves, and how he lived.
God wants an intimate relationship with us. One-on-one. Firsthand. He not only wants us to know Him, But He also wants us to trust Him with our hearts, minds, emotions, hopes, and dreams.
Things went wrong in the garden not because Satan tempted Adam and Eve.
Things drastically got upended when they didn’t bring God into the discussion and temptation.
They didn’t leverage His strength and wisdom in the midst of the challenge. They leaned on their own understanding and strength and lost the fight with the enemy of their souls.
How often we lose the fight with the enemy of our souls. I do. I forget to leverage my relationship with the Holy Spirit living within me. I forget that “greater is He that is within me than he that is in the world.” When I drift in my studying of my heavenly Father, getting to know Him more and more, I then forget where my strength and wisdom come from.
The apostle John, who knew Jesus face to face, heart to heart, makes it clear for us:
“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one
who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
1 John 4:4 New International Version (NIV)
It isn’t a religious practice reading the Word of God. It is a relationship: getting to know God.
We will be able to identify where our strength comes from because we KNOW the one who provides all we need. Jesus’ life articulates what He values, how He loves, and the way He lived.
Jesus was tempted. Jesus wept. Jesus said:
“Jesus gave them this answer: ‘Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
John 5:19 New International Version (NIV)
Jesus praying, seeking His Father, is mentioned over 27 times in the Bible. He spent time watching, learning, being in a relationship with His Father, leaning into His Father in the most desperate of times.
Jesus brought His Father into His temptations and He was strengthened. The Holy Spirit within Him gave Him strength, wisdom, and courage in every situation. Jesus showed us how to be in the world and yet not of the world.
When we bring Our Heavenly Father into our living; the good, the hard, and the ugly, He will give us what we need to stay true, sure, and solid in our response to the temptations and challenges we face each day.
The key is inviting God into the discussion that we will gain the tools and resources we need to overcome obstacles and temptations we face each day.
God is not interested in us being religious about our relationship with Him. He is interested in spending time with us in our relationship. Getting to know and trust Him in all we do.
Today can you intentionally take some quality time to learn of God first hand reading a portion of His Word?
