Okay, so we can discover God right in the middle of the cut and thrust of life. But what about those quiet times?
We’re so busy and connected these days – the gadgets, social media, entertainment choices – do we have time for unhurried, quiet fellowship with God?
For many a Christ-follower the answer – let’s be blunt about this – is “No”.
We don’t quite like to say it that way. We find all sorts of ways to justify and explain away the fact that we don’t spend time alone each day with God, but the reality is that most Christians simply don’t.
And we never really even stop to think of the gravity of the choice that we’ve made.
Just before He was crucified, in His prayer to His Father, Jesus revealed His whole reason, His whole rationale for going to the Cross:
As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me … I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:21-24)
In other words, the very reason that Jesus went to the Cross was so that we could be one with Him and the Father. And when we live out a demented, worldy set of priorities that squeeze Him out of our schedule – what we’re in fact saying to Him is this:
Lord, I know you died on that Cross so that I could have an intimate relationship with you … but frankly, I’m just too busy!
Perhaps that seems a little harsh at first … but how else would you put it? How else would you stand before a battered, bruised, bloody Jesus dying on the Cross, look Him in the eye and explain the yawning gap between His passion for intimacy with us, and our pathetic response? Well?
In those times in my walk with Jesus when I – like you – have managed not to make the time to spend with Him, I have experienced spiritual attack after spiritual attack. I have drifted like a small dingy on a stormy sea. I have lost the joy and the peace of the Lord in my life. It’s been downright awful actually.
My hunch is that that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen when we stop spending time with Jesus each day in His Word and in prayer. Because the only place we discover the joy of the Lord … is in the Lord. The only place we find the peace of God … is in God.
DOH!
The door to the Godhead – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – has been flung wide open through the forgiveness we have in the Cross of Christ, and through the new life we have through the Presence of the Spirit in us.
So here’s our choice.
We can tarry outside … we can tarry our whole life away … and miss out on the intimacy that Jesus purchased for us on that Cross, and experience the devastating consequences of that choice in our lives. Or we can grab a cup of tea or coffee, go in, sit down and rest in Christ in unhurried fellowship and prayer … and be filled with His peace, His patience, His power and His praise.
It’s a simple choice. Cause and effect.
So with you in your busy schedule, and me in mine – here’s the question: What will we choose to do? How will we choose to live the rest of our lives here on earth? Well?
