Holiday breaks can be the best of times and the worst of times. I often find myself getting out of my typical routine and therefore spending less time with my savior. You would think that the “extra” personal time would turn into quality/quantity time with God, but it never seems to. Over the past couple of days, I have been reflecting on how little time I actually spend studying and pondering the words of God. This reflection makes me sad.
Like any other logical man, I started thinking about what the cause of this is so I can fix it. So what did I come up with? Well, two things came to mind that need to be addressed. 1) things and circumstances are taking up mindspace with the absence of “meditating day and night on His word”; and 2) spiritual disciplines in my life have gone down the toilet. Specifically, the disciplines of mediation, prayer, and solitude are what I am referring to. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that #1 is pretty reliant on #2.
Evidently it isn’t enough that God is pressing this issue on my heart heavily over the past couple of days…..I show up at church and Mitch (one of our teaching pastors) talks about wisdom and how to get it. In his message he talks about submitting our intellect or mind over to the thoughts of God. Once again (he does this several times a year) he encourages us to read a chapter of proverbs per day, a chapter in the NT and three in the OT….I guess God is trying to get my attention.
What I really want to do is study His teachings daily and dwell (meditate) on them throughout the rest of the day --- this will address both of the above issues…I know that I don’t want to make it about how much I read that day or getting a checkmark on my “biblical checklist”, but I do know that there is something about the steady, constant, disciplines of meditation, prayer, and solitude.
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2 comments:
I'm with ya brother. Today is the 2nd and I have already missed my goal to start the day with morning devotions. I had to do a quick catch up this afternoon. Seems kinda like I missed the point. As you said, it's not about check marks, it's about the time alone with Him.
Thanks for the book recommendations. I will check those out too!
Especially with family commitments, sometimes the holidays are more distracting times for us than our routine days. (OK, REEEEALLY distracting) You are so right that we need to stay focused and dwell on what we have studied through the whole day. Thanks for the reminder.
I'm praying for ya.
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