Yesterday's post focused on the possibility that we might be taking a half-hearted approach in our relationship with the Lord. That we might not really be giving Him very much of our time.
You see, I believe that any relationship requires time. Whether with your spouse, or with your children, or with your friends, or with the Lord, for a relationship to be all that it can be requires time. In our Christian circles, we often refer to that time with the Lord as our "quiet time".
I can hear your protests already. Susan, you just don't understand what my life is like. You don't know how busy I am. You don't know what it's like to have a child and work and get the groceries bought and get to soccer practice and......
But, wait! Yes, I do! Certainly at this season of my life, I am not a working mother of young children. I no longer have to juggle work schedules and school schedules and music lessons and ball practice and choir practice and.......
But once upon a time, back in the olden days, I was a young mother. A young working mother. And before you get your knickers in a twist, it is my firm belief that all mothers are working mothers. Parenting is a tough job. So let me clarify. Once upon a time, I was a young mother with two little boys and a husband who also had a job of her own outside the home.
I vividly remember what it was like to get us all up and fed and dressed and out the door well before 7 in the morning, so that I could drop the boys off at before-school-care and make the commute to my job and then make the commute back in the afternoon, already weary, so that we could go to soccer practice or a soccer game and a violin lesson, hopefully have a decent dinner, get homework, baths and bedtime taken care of, so we could get up the next morning and do it all again. And somewhere in the middle of all that, there was laundry and grocery shopping and being sure the dog was taken care of and house cleaning. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, there would be time to actually sit down and read a book or watch a TV show or have an actual conversation with my husband or even just catch my breath.
But in the middle of all that I had to find time to be alone with God. Without that, I would not have made it through. Did I have huge blocks of time back then for Bible study? No......so I took it where I could find it, in small blocks of time. Did I have to get up earlier than I might have wanted to so that I could have a few uninterrupted minutes with the Lord? Yes. Was it hard? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.
I've never been one of those people who think that your time alone with the Lord must be "x" amount of minutes every day at the exact same time. I'm not one who believes that your time with God must always occur at a certain time of day that has been predetermined by somebody somewhere who made a decision that 4:30 AM (or some other arbitrary time) is somehow the holiest part of the day and that God is only available during that time. Nor am I sold on the idea that there is some rigid "this is the only proper way to have a quiet time" schedule of how your time with God is to be spent. However that works out is, I believe, between you and God. But I am one of those people who believes that time alone with God is an abolute necessity for the health of your relationship with the Lord.
I can say that because I know how my life has been affected in those seasons where I neglected my time with the Lord. How all my other relationships suffered because I neglected the one that mattered most.
My friend Melanie has some excellent posts on this topic over at her blog. http://pleasuresforevermoreps1611.blogspot.com. Check it out....you'll be glad you did!
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night." (Psalm 1:1-2 NIV).
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