HarvestInsider

When I have my quiet times with God, the heavens open, the Spirit descends, the room fills with glory, and I am overwhelmed by the presence of God.

I wish.

Actually, my typical experience with God is pretty boring.   It’s quiet.  It’s still.  It’s simple.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve had some awesome, powerful, Glory filled moments with God… but not many.  Most of the time, it’s just me and God.  No hype.  No frills.  No wow.

And it’s ok.

To be the guy who expects the earth to shake every time I come to God, isn’t healthy or wise.  Anytime you come to God with experience expectations there exists an internal pressure which can lead to two very false assumptions, if your experience isn’t mind blowing…

God didn’t show up.

or

I must have failed.

And neither are true.  In 1 Kings 19, Elijah found himself in an encounter with God, and God came to him much differently than he expected.  There was a powerful wind, then an earthquake, and then a fire.  All big time experiential events, but it said that the Lord was not in those things.

But then came God’s “gentle whisper.” (1 Kings 19:12). 

Our experiential nature can sometimes pressure us to experience the wind, earthquake, and fire every time we come into God’s presence.  Yet some days, God wants to whisper into our souls, and we’d be wise to let Him.

I’ve come to place in my life where I just let God be God over my times with Him.  I don’t try to tell Him what it should be like and I don’t expect that it will be anything other than what it is… time with my Master.  The pressure is gone and my soul is at rest, when I let Him define our time together.

Today, let God be the God of your time with Him.  You don’t need to stir up the experience and you don’t need to try to conjure up earthquakes and fire.  Just let Him do His thing.  The only thing you need to do is come.

“Just as I am, without one plea,

but that Thy blood was shed for me,

and that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

Oh Lamb of God, I come.  I come.”  -  from the hymn “Just As I Am”

I just watched an episode of “Hoarders”.  Wow.  Unbelievable.  A whole show dedicated  to people who don’t know how to clean house.

Don’t get me wrong, my house gets a little chaotic sometimes.  In fact last night, when I went into my two son’s room, I thought they might need to be on an episode of “Hoarders”.  My instruction was simple.  “Grow up and Clean up.”  Living in that chaos isn’t healthy, wise, or good stewardship.

Unfortunately, many of us are living with souls that are just as cluttered and chaotic.  They have gotten buried under the weight of misplaced priorities, bitterness, resentment, pressure, stress, worry, anxiety, and a myriad of other things.  The problem is that because our souls seem hidden from the outside world, we seldom consider its condition as a priority to address.

Yet you can’t hide the soul.  The soul comes out in every part of our lives.  It comes out when we drive, when we talk, when we spend, when we eat, when we parent, when we are alone, when we rest… it even comes out in how we take care of our home.

Messy Soul = Messy Life.

This is why I believe that time with God is so vitally important everyday.  When we come to God with the door of our soul open, He can, piece by piece, help us put the things in our lives in their proper place.  The junk gets thrown away, the valuable gets put on the right shelves, and His peace begins to replaces the chaos.

When God says, “Be Still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10), I believe that He is inviting us to open the door to our chaotic souls and allow His Spirit to intervene.  When we get still with God, and allow His Truth to begin to sweep through the clutter and the mess, our souls begin to experience the pace, the peace, and the purpose that God intended for us all along.  For those who will open the door, a transformed life is on the way.

Can you take the next 5 minutes, right now, to be still, open your soul to God, and allow Him to begin to order the chaos?

This morning, I was a few minutes early for a meeting and as I sat down, I remember thinking to myself…

“Well, I can’t really do anything profitable in the next five minutes, so I might as well check twitter…”

And as soon as I flipped open the phone, I knew that the Lord was asking me to give Him that five minutes… to quiet my soul and center myself on Him.

And do you know what I found?  That five minutes has shaped my entire morning.  I have a peace about a few things I was stressing over, I have a better pace in my soul after a busy morning, and I have a focus on the things on my plate that are priority. 

So if you run across a spare five minutes in your schedule, grab it and give it to God.  It’s the most productive thing you might do all day!