Sorry if you came by looking for a post yesterday. I am on the mend from my weekend cold/hay fever (the pollen count is high already here in GA). Also, lots of personal distractions prevented me from sitting long enough at the computer to post. So, here are my thoughts for days 12 and 13 of my Season of Quiet.
You may be feeling the stress of the world creeping in, too. Earthquakes, tsunamis, wars and rumors of wars, all of these and more remind me of 1 Peter 5:8 which says, Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.(NLT) Also, Matthew 24:42, Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
We press on through each new day, in the middle of the devil's warfare. He does anything he can to keep us from finding Truth and Peace. His demons know they are running out of time to turn humans away from God. They swoop in when we are vulnerable, when we take our eyes off the heavens where the Master Designer is pulling His plan together with or without our submission. We so easily pluck the lies from the world when we do not have the Truth hidden in our hearts. (See Psalm 119:11. This is a great first scripture for memorization!)
Can you feel the Spirit tugging on your heart strings? Do you hear Someone knocking on the door of your heart? You can't put your finger on it, but you know there is something more than what you are living. I felt that way for years, not understanding that I didn't have to be in a church building to find what I was seeking. We are all separated from God by our sin, since God is perfect and can not be in the presence of sin. However, Jesus is our High Priest, and brings us closer to our Heavenly Father through his intercession. He intercedes night and day on our behalf even while we are still sinning. We simply need to humbly accept and trust His redemptive Grace to come to the Father and receive our inheritance in Heaven.
Recently, I did trust and accept Jesus as my Savior in the presence of my pastor. (I promise to present my full testimony before this journey is over.) Now, I seek God's face every day by meditating on His word (The Bible), and lifting my prayers up to Him in my daily quiet time. As I've said before, this makes a huge difference as I go about the business of my day. Anxiety lessens, peace settles in, I feel more than a conqueror! This is why we are intentionally looking for quiet in the days leading up to Easter.
I have been reading through the Bible since January of this year. In my Old Testament reading, I began to envy the children of Israel, with their visible direction of the Lord in a cloud by day or fire by night. We have something more than they had though. We have the life, teachings, and testimony of Jesus. Not only does that give us direction, but allows us to more fully understand the character of God. This is what we are intentionally meditating on in our personal quiet time.
How do we do this? I have given you a few suggestions so far in my Season of Quiet for beginning to focus on where and when you can start finding quiet in your day. These are different for everyone. You may be a morning person and get up early each day with your journal and a cup of tea before heading out into the world. You may be a night owl and like to relax after a long day in your easy chair with a good book. Maybe both morning and evening meditation sound appealing. If you can start and end the day with quiet meditation, kudos to you! If you are just starting out this habit though, a consistent and set aside quality time each day is most important.
Our model for quality time with God comes from Jesus. We find that Jesus prayed in "solitary" and "lonely" places (Mark 1:35 and Luke 5:16). He prayed in a posture of reverence and submission (Matthew 26:39). He gave us an outline for the words we should use when we pray in what we refer to as "The Lord's Prayer" (Matthew 6:9-13). In addition to meditating and memorizing scripture, prayer is how we seek God in our quiet time.
So, Part 2 of this theme on finding your personal quiet time has given you some ideas for What, When, Where, and How. We also reviewed Why intentionally seeking quiet in our daily life is important. The most important question is Who are we doing this for in the first place? Is it for ourselves? Not when you think about it. In quiet prayer and meditation, we recognize the Source of our strength, the Power behind our purpose, and the need to relinquish our plans to His plans. The resulting blessing to us is that He is an ever present help, our strong tower, a fortress when we're weak. And He came to redeem us and offer us an eternal life beyond this mortal one! A life where we will fully commune with Him face to face. Without "street noise". In quiet adoration and triumphant worship. Can I get an AMEN?!
As I seek out my own quiet times, I can't promise to post every day here at Life Beyond PBJ. I am doing all of this without an outline, only as I am moved to write. So, I hope you continue to follow along and anticipate what we will share together here for the next several weeks. I'd love to hear from you in the comments.
Take care and enjoy the quiet moments you find today!
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