I can’t believe that we’re in the month of October. I mean, 2012 is only three months away and I don’t know about y’all, but life has been super busy lately and I find myself saying these words on an hourly basis, “I am so tired”. When I wake up in the morning I’m already thinking about the moment when I can get back home and lay down again. I’m always in a hurry. I forget things more than I ever have before and my level of frustration stays at about an 8 (on a scale of 1 to 10).
One day in the midst of my frustration, the Lord reminded me of a sincere prayer that I prayed one night. I prayed this particular prayer after realizing how vital having my daily quiet time with the Lord was, and I asked Him to disrupt my life whenever He became displeased with the amount and the quality of time I was spending with Him. At that moment it was like everything stopped and I attempted to recall the last time I had been in the Lord’s presence and just spent time with Him. Unhurried, focused time…..and……I honestly couldn’t remember. My quiet time with the Lord is supposed to be every morning from 6am-6:45, but what was happening was, my alarm clock would go off at 6am and I would snooze for about 30 to 45 minutes and then I would realize that I’m going to be late to work or class, so I would wake up in a frenzy, say a 1 minute prayer, get dressed and rush out of the door and then promise the Lord that tomorrow I would do better. But, instead of doing better as promised, I would unfortunately repeat the exact same thing over and over again. So, the Lord did exactly what I asked Him to do. He gently disrupted my life and He reminded me that until I got back on track with consistently spending quality time with Him, my life was going to be out of sync. It’s like a domino effect. Having an inconsistent quiet time with the Lord negatively affects everything else.
But as you all know, once you get out of the routine of doing something, it can be a little challenging to get back on track again, so I asked the Lord to help me and He brought me back to the basics with 2 simple, but oh so powerful versus.
1. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33
2. Pray continually. 1 Thessalonians 5:17
When I use to think about Matthew 6:33, I thought “all these things” only referred to tangible stuff, but now I realize that if we commit to seeking Him first and to praying continually, no matter how busy or hectic our lives are, He can add (in addition to the tangible stuff) Order. Consistency. Productivity. Motivation. Strength. Discipline, and any other thing that you need added to your life. But it starts with us making spending time with Him a priority and not something that we do in a hurry and/or once a week on Sunday. My pastor always says, “Prayer does not take time, it saves time”!
So, how about you….how consistent have you been with having a daily quiet time with the Lord? What does your quiet time consist of? Do you find it challenging to be consistent and have you noticed a considerable difference when you incorporate spending time with Him on a daily basis?
Can’t wait to hear from all of you.
Blessings,Antrenette
