Tag: time

Try One Thing 

 Smart phones have completely changed my life. 

I’ve been empowered to do many things at the same time: I can listen to music and text while I’m talking to someone as I’m finishing my lunch. 

While I can do more at once is amazing, I can’t say that it always produces my best work. I have several shirt stains to prove it. 

I can listen to music, text, while I’m talking to someone as I’m finishing my lunch, but does my friend really have my full attention and is he or she convinced that they have my attention as I am staring mostly at my “black wife” aka my iPhone? 

One of Jesus’ close friends, Martha, was busy making everything around the room pretty and welcoming for Jesus but was it the best thing to do at that moment? Honestly I don’t come down on Martha; I mean if you had God sitting in your living room wouldn’t you want to tidy up? 

But while Martha preoccupied herself with “many things”  (Luke 10:41 NKJV), she missed a priceless moment with Jesus. I’m sure she had future opportunities to be with God, but that single opportunity where Jesus physically sat in her living room and spoke the Word (v.39) was lost forever, never to be regained. 

Should there be a time to multitask? Yes, but I feel certain that focusing on one thing is becoming increasingly a lost art. 

While my phone is great, it does rob me of moments to completely engage and enjoy it. I see it worse in my spending time with Jesus. 

I want to dispense my prayers, break the silence with my worship playlist, have my bible app open, listen to a sermon podcast, quickly answer a text, stop that itch in the middle of my back, and somewhere at the bottom of this “to do” list: be still for the quiet voice of God. 

How much of your life is passing away while I swipe through your newsfeed? 

May be the best resolve is to see the possibility of each moment especially with God as irreplaceable; therefore urgently be all there. 

Try one thing. 

Not only can it be stress relieving and stain free, but it can also be rewarding. 

I forgot how cool the ocean was until I was taken out to surf. While I spend most of my time under the board, I was enjoying every minute of the clear water, the soft sand, the bright sun and deep ocean bottom. 

When King David realize how fully satisfied and joyful one can be with God he exclaimed, “You have put gladness in my heart, More than in the season that their grain and wine increased” (‭‭Psalms‬ ‭4:7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). With all the demands of being king, David took time alone to be with God (Psalms 27:4). 

Is me being always busy really that urgent? 

Should seeing and savoring Jesus be the center drive of my day because it is what completely satisfies me? 

How many of us have yet to relish this encounter? 

I made an excellent discovery: the best way I found to save battery life for my iPhone is to turn it off and let it sit there for a while. 
Why take some time and unplug and tune-in  to what’s around you and (more importantly) Who is in you. 

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Okay, I know God communicates to us in creative ways, but to see this was definitely a humorous God-send.

Since I’ve been back to school, I’ve planted this seed of fear that is developing this doubt of “will I pass all my classes so I can graduate?”

What is so timely about this status post is that I saw just after I shared this fear with a friend.

Thanks God. You can hack my FB profile anytime. 🙂

Where Your Treasure Is

In this new world with instant gratifications, (like my iPhone and Facebook), it’s more and more less difficult to get my heart entangled in mediocre things. How hard is it to keep Jesus the center of my life?

Jesus, who knows all hearts, spoked to the crowd one day with these words:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21 NKJV)

Jesus stressed to His followers that what a person treasures is where you find his heart. And was He wrong?

 

I have a friend who is consumed into being the next rising music artist. He spends hours of his free time writing songs and practice his vocals. He even bought a camera to do his own music videos!

For for him its music, but what drives your life? What “passes the clock” for you? What is it that effortlessly takes up your time? If you take the time to answer these questions, you will find what consumes your time; therefore what is the center of your life.

To make Jesus your center, you have to make Him an interest. It’s all about changing your appetite. I grew an appetite for celery. You need to change your appetite. King David offers the right prescription: 

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8 NKJV)

It will begin distasteful: maybe starting 5 minutes with Christ would feel like 5 hours of grueling silence, but that’s okay. You weren’t born a Christian. Just like we weren’t born an adult but grew into one, so we gradually develop into the person God wants us to be.

Start with a change of mind. Honestly, one of my constant prayers is, “Jesus, help me to want you”.

God lives in you, and He has promised that He will complete the work that He started in you (Phil 1:6)!

Make Jesus center by building an interest.

War

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A common excuse I have for God is,”Hey God I want to be with you but I just don’t have time.” But when you add it up- an hour on Facebook, some hours playing some computer games and hanging with friends and homework is thrown at the tail of that somewhere- honestly, we really don’t have an excuse to say I don’t have time for God.

Looking at myself, I feel we enjoy the comfort of being independent. Evaluate your day and you’ll see its mostly made of things that you want to do. Night sets in, and end up again giving God the leftovers of our day. What I fail to see that there is a war raging in all of us: our flesh vs the spirit.

Paul said: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” (Gal 5:17 NKJV)

Flesh and Spirit competing each other for our attention. The flesh seeks us to live out our selfish ambitions – ‘I’m in for me!’; however the Spirit is calling us to seek Christ and develop in the life to which He calls us.

Do you see how different these two forces are? There two extremes both at the divide of the line, pulling at the arms to win you over to their side.

Understand every moment outside God’s presence is time lost to please ourselves.

Remember more importantly that you are among“…those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal 5:24 NKJV).

God has already destroyed the power of your flesh. Ask Him for the strength to overcome it that you may fully walk in the spirit.

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal 5:16 NKJV)

Don’t Worry

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” -Matthew 6:33

Among the topics Jesus touched on during His sermon on the mount was the waste of worrying.

Jesus seemingly joked that you can’t add to your height by worrying (Luke 12:25). Worrying solves nothing.

It’s pointless to fret when our trust is in the LORD. When you worry, you are saying, “God, you can’t help me with my problem.”

Unbelievers can worry, because they don’t have God who will supply all their needs; but we have a God who is mighty to save and desires to hear from us.

We can take our problems to God.

Philippians 4:6 says,”Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

We could waddle time worrying over things we cannot change or we could change focus and set on eyes on higher things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” -Matthew 6:55. (NKJV) Jesus here told his disciples to look to God.

“And all these things will be added to you”: God promises to bless us when we seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). Rather than taking that 45 minutes to stress over a circumstance, prioritize your time seeking His face. Time is in His hands. Wouldn’t you more precious of all things made hold you?