Alive in Christ: Active in choosing
“I put my praise music on for the two hour drive and I had such a refreshing time with the Lord! I came back to my responsibilities with a fresh perspective!”
My pastor friend lives a busy life! Young kids, ministry that never seems to be done, bills, school taxi to run, mentoring, friendships, small group, and so on. You know what it’s like…most of us do. The day just seems to over run the allotted time on the clock.
But my friend found a key to freshness. It is the key of being active in making small decisions during her day…decisions that draw her closer to the God she loves and to a freshness in her soul!
We don’t intend for it to happen but somehow a passiveness creeps into busy Christian’s lives. We do ministry, we pray on the run, we read when we get a minute, we encourage where we can, we slip our tithe in the offering…and we somehow slip into a passive relationship with Jesus. We somehow expect Him to do the job of drawing near to us. We somehow begin to offer Him yesterday’s lunch and yet we long for a miracle today.
I hadn’t talked to Judy in ages. She phoned yesterday and told me now she had been asking God for so long to work in her life and in her home. Finally she determined to grab hold of God in a fresh way. She choose to “drag” herself out of bed a half hour early and get into His presence daily At first it was just routine, even dry, and she nearly didn’t crawl out of her warm bed. But as she asked God to speak to her, the scripture began to be alive again. She was excited about her journey! She was being refreshed!
Take a moment right now and check your own life. Do you long for a freshness you once knew in a way that you miss today? Can you remember when the last time was that you spent more than 20 minutes in the presence of God? Has your prayer time become a hurried list of things God needs to do for you, or have you taken time to ask Him what is on His heart lately?
God makes a promise: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8) What do you need to do today, this week, to actively choose your relationship with Jesus over the many important and busy tasks that call for your attention? He longs to bring that freshness to your soul!
Make a choice to become active in pursuing God afresh. Actively choose time in His presence, actively choose to expose yourself to music that inspires, actively choose to turn off the TV, to invite Him into every decision, to ask Him which fruit of the Spirit He wants to cultivate in your life today. Actively choose to pray in a quiet corner and not just on the run, to listen for His voice, to read his Word and not just a devotional book, and to ask Him to teach you.
He will be true to His promise! He will come near and refresh your soul. Then you will have that fresh lunch to again place in His hands to multiply and to work a miracle today.
Be active in choosing!
Gail Rodgers
Spiritual Development Coordinator
January 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am
If I allow myself to slip in my daily time with God, it can become more than one day sometimes a week, then quick calls to him on the run. I do not plan this but it happens if I do not plan to spend time with Him everyday. On mornings that I have to go out early, I have found that I need to get up earlier, because if I decide to do it later in the day, my schedule wins the battle for my time and that is not good. This is a great reminder how easy it is to slip away from God.
evelyn