2/1/12 5:05 a.m.
Get up early and spend time with Me. Pray. Ask Me questions. I will answer you. Let us have conversation. I wait for you each morning. It is our time together. A Holy time. It is when you will hear Me best before the chaos of the day begins. It is a silent and beautiful time. Seek Me and you will find Me when you seek Me with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your energy. This will be a time of relationship for us. I will build your character and train you in many ways. I will give you wisdom. Be faithful to this time and I will bless you in abundant ways. Know that I long to bless you. Set aside this time and I will meet you. You will feel My presence and you will know I’m with you, that I guide you and I love you. Invest faithfully in our relationship and you will have abundant joy and gladness of heart. You will have an impact on people everywhere, through My power. Through the power you receive during your time with Me. I will work through you and all will know I am your God. Allow Me to bless you so you can bless others. Start today and know that I love you. Know that I love you deeply.
We’ve all heard of type A and B personalities. Type A personalities are competitive, organized, ambitious, impatient, work and goal focused, highly aware of wasted time and/or aggressive. Type B personalities are laid back, creative, deep thinkers, and less rushed and stressed than their type A counterparts. Neither personality is better than the other. They are simply different.
I am a type A personality. My simple definition is go-go-go, do-do-do. Let’s get it done! There’s no time like the present! The more I accomplish in a day, the more satisfied I feel. And I lack fulfillment when I don’t meet my own expectations. This means slowing down does not come easy for me.
Not long after I gave my heart to Jesus, I started to hear, read, or see the words from Psalm 46:10 on a recurring basis: Be still and know that I am God. I would hear them in a church sermon, see them written on a plaque at the Christian store, or read them in a devotional. And it seemed these words were popping up far too often to be accidental. It wasn’t long before I began to sense God was speaking to me.
Although I read my Bible and participated in church activities, my ever-busy lifestyle often left me with little time to truly focus on my relationship with God. My Bible reading was more random than consistent and sometimes, if I am honest, I squeezed it in unfocused to check it off my ‘to do’ list. Simply put, rather than God having priority in my life, He often received whatever time I had leftover. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about reading my bible but convinced myself I would ‘get to it’ once I finished cleaning the house… going to the gym… meeting a friend for lunch… fill in the blank! Then, the day would pass, and I would remember that I never did get to it.
Be still and know that I am God. In the Bible, there is a story about two sisters, one named Martha and the other named Mary. Both sisters deeply loved Jesus, but they had different personalities. Here is a brief passage:
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42 NIV)
At this point, you can easily guess that I am “a Martha”. I knew God wanted me to give Him my ‘undistracted’ time. And I knew that spending daily time with Him was important to my faith walk. I simply struggled to do this together with all the other things I felt were important and loved to do. I had a full-time job, attended, and participated in church activities, exercised, spent time with friends, along with responsibilities such as grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. The day just didn’t seem long enough, and I couldn’t figure out how to do ‘it all’.
“Lay down what’s good and find what’s best” (‘Breathe’ by Jonny Diaz, underline added). This song says so much. Although it was published several years after I developed the habit of a daily ‘quiet time’ at the feet of Jesus, it describes my situation perfectly. Looking back, God was showing me there are, indeed, many ‘good’ things to pursue in life, but not all things are ‘necessary’. I needed to first learn and pursue the necessary and then fill the rest of my available time with my choice of the good. I needed to reorganize my priorities.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity." (Jeremiah 29:13-14 NIV, emphasis added)
In this scripture, the Israelites, God’s chosen people, were in the ‘captivity’ of another nation because they had sinned and turned away from God. They were unfaithful to their covenant with Him and were worshiping other gods. God was asking them to turn back to Him so He could bless them and bring them out of captivity. While this was a specific type of captivity, there is a parallel in our world today.
Although many of us do not realize it, we are in captivity to something. For me, I was captive to my ‘to do’ list, and desire to accomplish much in a day. My go-go-go, do-do-do personality had become my false god and I was prioritizing this over the real thing, the One and only God. God wanted me to slow down, take a deep breath, sit at His feet, and learn what is ‘necessary’. He wanted to set me free from the things that weighed me down. Eventually, I began to listen.
For me, the key to developing consistent time with the Lord was to schedule it at the beginning of my day. Since I am a morning person, am prone to distractions once the day begins, and have less energy in the evening, I knew getting up early was the time God would receive my greatest focus. But this took practice and I did not do it well in the beginning. Sometimes I would struggle to get out of bed, or I would fall asleep in the middle of my time with the Lord. Occasionally, I would decide the night before that I was up too late and needed to sleep in. I would vow to get to my quiet time later in the day… though I rarely did. But God kept working on me in the patient way He does. Little by little, my consistency increased until a morning quiet time became part of my everyday schedule.
I’ve been sitting at the feet of Jesus for several years now and it’s rare to have a day without it. It’s become a vital part of my life. I have come to recognize the necessary. And because I have been seeking God with all my heart, I have found Him, and I have come to know Him. To know God is to see His radiance and glory that shines above all else. This knowledge is unmistakably beautiful.
My daily time with the Lord has given me a more accurate assessment of self. As Jen Wilkin puts it, “the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand”. Because God is everything excellent, I see that I am not. Because God is all loving, I see that I need to grow in this area. Because God is all knowing, I see that my knowledge is limited. Because God is all powerful, I see that I am comparatively weak… and on and on. Spending time at the feet of Jesus has shown me who I am in relation to who He is. I am humbled because I see that He is far greater, wiser, more grace filled, patient, and forgiving than I will ever be. This leads me to stand in awe of a God who is everything and in need of nothing. Yet, He is a God who still wants a relationship with me.
During these morning hours, I have also seen more clearly where I have been wrong in specific behaviors and responses. It motivates me to grow and improve. It shows me the right path and provides wisdom for the journey. I have seen a decrease in unwise choices. It increases my desire to serve others with my time, gifts, and treasure. I have learned to apologize humbly and forgive gracefully. I have learned to trust and love more. My desires have changed, and my life has been simplified. And while I still have much growth in front of me, I can look back and see a difference between where I am now and where I was then… before a consistent quiet time at the feet of Jesus.
To have this relationship with the Lord, I have had to give up other things. Good things. Sometimes it is sleep, sometimes it is exercise, sometimes it is time with a friend. But in all examples, Jesus has been worth it. And God is so abundant in His giving, that I have not felt unnecessary pain or want in the sacrifice. Sometimes I find there is more time in the day to do the things I enjoy than I realized. A task I think will take two hours only takes one… or something I thought I had to do was canceled or taken care of by someone else. I’ve heard it said, “You can’t out give God” and I have absolutely found this to be true in my own life.
I believe a daily quiet time with our sovereign God, at the feet of Jesus, is one of the essential keys to true success. Knowledge of, love for, and trust in the God who created us. Insight into the profound sacrifice Jesus made to save us. More accurate knowledge of self, leading to repentance and change. Awareness of false gods, leading to freedom from things that weigh us down. Wisdom for our journey. A simplified life. Peace. A softened heart toward others. Lasting joy only God can give. And treasures in heaven that endure for eternity.
You may or may not be a type A personality, but you have your own distractions that may be keeping you from sitting at the feet of Jesus. Do you need to lay down what’s good and find what’s best? Are you missing the ‘necessary’ in your day to day living? What habits or things represent your false gods? From what do you need to be freed?
Friend, do you hear it? Listen carefully. Breathe. Take a seat at the feet of Jesus. God speaks to all of us: “Be still and know…”
“Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10 NIV)
I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts. (Psalm 119:45 NIV)