I've now been away from home for sixteen days, and away from blogging for nearly four months. I've logged perhaps four posts in that time. Why the dirth of posts? It hasn't been for lack of "grist" for the "mill"! Life has been going 90 miles per hour. Until, sixteen days ago that is. Emmy and I left for Fabens, Texas and Guadalupe Mexico then, with Emmy scheduled to serve on the Staff of Tapestries of Life Ministries for three weeks, and me "scheduled" to take a week of vacation, serve on the New Life Community and Family Mission Team for a week, and then close out the three weeks away with a week of study leave. At the two thirds point through the three weeks, I've discovered something--or I should say I have RE-discovered something: God speaks more clearly when I slow down and focus on Him! Actually, God speaks clearly ALL the time. It is when I slow down that I HEAR Him! I've been running and praying throughout my time away, logging sixty miles and ten hours of prayer time during those runs. Getting up at 5:05 each morning and then heading out for a run and prayer before it gets light and before it gets HOT, has SLOWED my life down tremendously! During that 30 to 100 minutes of prayer time, God has spoken clearly and often. I'll have a new "formula" to share in a future post that adds to the one with which New Life folks have become familiar:
Information - Application = Information, but Information +Application = Transformation
You may wonder why it is that if life has slowed down so much during the past sixteen days, that it took until the sixteenth day for a post to appear. That would be a good question to ponder. The answer to that question is that I have prayerfully been considering whether blogging is the best use of a portion of the twenty-four hours God gives us each day. After all, since I can't add to that finite number of twenty-four hours each day, I must consider how each of those hours (and even minutes) is invested. After all, if I want to continue life in the "slow" lane--that is life with ample time for God each day when I return to Pennsylvania this Saturday afternoon, then I must be more intentional than ever about building "margin" into my life.
This much I know: When I return to Pennsylvania there won't be fewer challenges to guarding my daily time with God, but more. There will be 24 hours in each day as there have been here. The key will be to do what I've done here: Keep God first; plan each day--remembering that all of us tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a year; and remember that in the end my having a healthy and growing relationship with Jesus will determine whether I have a healthy and growing relationship with my family and my church family, and whether Jesus can trust me with greater responsibility in every area of my life.
A few questions for you: Are you putting Jesus FIRST each day? Is your relationship with Him growing? Is there enough time in each day to do what He wants you to do? Are you DOING what He wants you to do? Is there a SCHEDULED time of Sabbath (rest and renewal) in your life, ensuring that you have an hour each day, and a day each week resting and renewing yourself with the Lord? God has been asking me those questions over the past sixteen days, and I've been finding that the more of them I can answer, "Yes!" the more like Jesus my life becomes, and as the New Testament reminds us from beginning to end that IS the goal of our time here after He becomes Savior and Lord of our lives!
You asked the question, Are You Putting Jesus First Each Day? I have answered that on my website, at www.Truediscipleship.com. It is found at the upper left of the home page (on Oct. 3, 2009).Richard
Posted by: Richard Hollerman | October 03, 2009 at 12:00 PM