Today was a day for sending out resumes for my “survival job” and to work on my sermon for Sunday. (Shameless plug: I’m preaching at Indianapolis Christian Fellowship on Sunday if any of you want to come for worship.) What makes it worse is that Heidi has been great during this time of working on the new church. She has been trying to get out of the house with the boys so that I can have a quiet house for concentration. So, she was gone for most of the morning with the boys for a play date and the early afternoon was quiet with the boys napping and Heidi running errands…yet nothing of what I wanted to do today got done. My mind just kept wandering. I kept thinking about what else I could have been doing around the house and then actually doing those things around the house. Yet now, I can’t even think about what I did do.
The problem with today was that I wasn’t focused. When I used to write my sermons I would go to certain places to write them. These weren’t necessarily quiet places, but places that I used mainly for crafting my sermons. When I walked in and sat down (usually in the same seat), I became focused on the task at hand. I had quiet today…but no focus.
And that got me thinking…how often are we focused when we have our quiet times with the Lord. So often in our busy, rushed lives (see yesterday’s blog) we have our “quiet time” in the not-so-quiet…if we get to it at all. Think about the last time that you were focused and quiet in the presence of God. (Insert Jeopardy’s Theme Music here). And I don’t mean that to be insulting or disrespectful, for I know this doesn’t apply to everyone. But my guess is, for the most part, that people are too busy to quiet themselves enough to truly sit in the presence of the Lord and listen.
We need to focus; we need to take the time; we need to have a place where we can go and be in the throne room of God. A place that is protected for that purpose—your place. Now, I’m not saying that nothing else can be done there; but for you…you should keep that place for your time with the Lord. Don’t do homework there; don’t do work there. It is reserved for God. By just sitting in your place, it becomes a preparation to be with the Lord.
Some of us don’t have those capabilities because of limited space (we’re in that situation now); you may need to go somewhere to have that place. Jesus was constantly removing himself from the people to be with the Father. Time and time again we read about how Jesus went somewhere to pray. He needed to get away and focus.
I don’t know what will work for you. What I do know is that we need to be focused in order to make our time with the Lord worthy of Him.
Find a place…your place.
No comments:
Post a Comment