Time alone with God

 Sometimes the beginning of a blog is a rising up of an idea like the sun or moon breaking the eastern horizon.  As I sit and think, the thoughts of its appearing, understanding, and discovery grow.  Other times the beginning of an idea is more of a festering splinter just under the skin.  I get negatively inspired by an irritation.  Usually, the annoyance is sourced by an overused or underappreciated phrase of “church talk.”  This particular blog was initially inspired by hearing such an expression.

I only got one sentence typed when nothing more came to mind.  For two days, I have ponded this idea while going about the normal activities of life.  Still, nothing happened.  This is not an uncommon experience.  Most often, the “idea” remains in a file on my computer as just a title or an abbreviation of an ideal.  It’s not that the idea is nonsense; it just had no connection with life at that moment.

This morning I was about to leave the thought in that file folder when it occurred to me I was trying to spew a spiritual peeve.  I had forgotten what started this blog, “collecting and preserving stuff that matters” to me so my grandchildren will know something of my life with our Creator.

Now that you have suffered with me through my confessional explanation of motivation, here is the phrase, “Time alone with God.”  The phrase has many other wordings: Quiet Time, Devotional, Bible reading, prayer time, and others.  What troubles me is that what is referenced is a period of morning or evening minutes in which we read the Bible or something a reader has written, and prays to its Author.  In these minutes, we often are more concerned with getting something from God than giving something to God.

We are pushed by our spiritual leaders to daily Bible reading and prayer, and this they should do.  We start with great enthusiasm and hope of a new way of living.  But alas, the effort, like most of the other commitments in life, gets squeezed out of our schedules or rushed through to complete our “to do” list.  What started out as a grand plan became another source of guilt or frustration or discouragement or all three.

What is terrible about this is that the “full life” Jesus promised becomes just another facet of a busy life.  We cease to become “new” and labor at polishing what is already; the old.

I am not a highly disciplined person.  Probably, I am not even a lowly disciplined person.  I am an emotional person.  Accordingly, I have had a lot of ups and downs in my inner person that has often bloomed into my behavior.  Inconsistency is my most lasting consistency.

However, I have finally learned a truth that has altered my inner person and stabilized my behavior.  Whether I learned this and discovered the corresponding Scripture or the Scripture final got through to me, I do not know.  Here is the text; it is from the thirty-seventh Psalm,

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. (HCB)

My life has been radically changed and relaxed since these thirteen words took root.

To help me understand what I mean, I have taken the phrase “Time alone with God” and reversed the order of words to “God with alone time.”   My Creator took the initiative and invited me to be “with” Him.  When He gives an invitation, he also provides the ability.  His desire becomes my motivation, not to accomplish but to “be with” my Creator.  Being with my wife, children, grandchildren, and friends is not a discipline. It’s a want to.  Alone is necessary for a variety of reasons, but in particular, God loves to be with me, not us.  “Us” is essential, but that supernaturally comes later. I do not believe God has relationships with congregations, but individuals who congregate.  Time is the most precious possession I have, giving it to those I love is easy, not a sacrifice.  I do not have to make time for God, He has already made all the time I need to have the life He promised.

Where you spend your time clearly reveals what you choose to desire, to love.

Photo: The aftermath of an ice storm just west of our house.