Waiting... & Praying

...While my family and I were waiting almost an hour to be seating at a restaurant on Valentines day the Holy Spirit reminded me that if one desires to spend more time with Christ in prayer, we have the opportunity during these idol moments when our minds can wonder impatiently. Instead of texting, playing a game.... You can simply close your eyes, bow your head.. and talk to Christ during that time. We often complain about the fact that we have little time to study His Word & commune with Him in prayer. People may look at you funny or think you are sleeping... But the Father will enjoy that extra time spent with you. But honestly, this is an area in which we must discipline ourselves in.

The Reverse

Each day I am petitioning the Lord to bring me to this place in my life. It is a place where I no longer have to struggle to obey; but rather the struggle is to sin against God… All because the presence of God has so transformed me, and the Holy Spirit is so imminent and controlling my entire being; that I would have to excerpt effort, fight against myself violently in order to walk back into the prison of bondage that Christ released me from, and lock the door from the inside. I would no longer struggle with believing God for the impossible; but I would struggle convincing myself that God can’t do the impossible, and that He won’t answer my prayers; I would have to try to reason and rationalize my way through the notion that God can’t do it for this reason or that reason because I am so convinced of the power of God over all circumstances, His sovereignty, and Omnipotence. Instead of suddenly getting tired when I open up my Bible, I get tired when I turn on the television; I get tired and bored out of my mind reading blogs, talking on the phone, surfing websites. I can only spend hours drowned in God’s Word, studying, meditating; reciting, memorizing, catechizing myself; I read God’s Word and pray so much that people begin to think I have a problem; they begin to say that I am antisocial; they begin to run tests and see if it is healthy to pray so much, and read so much. I try to explain to them that I love Christ so much for who He is and what He has done for me that I must be with Him as much as I can; a moment without Him is grievous, because it was a moment I could have spent beholding the beauty of Christ. This is my prayer for my children; not that my daughter would graduate from college at the top of her class and work for a fortune 500 company; not that my son would be drafted out of high school and become an NBA All-Star; but that they would have a passion for Christ; that they would understand how much they have been forgiven; and allow that, and the beauty of Christ to propel their worship for the rest of their life. I see myself yelling up the stair to my daughter, “Makiyah, stop reading that Bible and go to sleep!” I hear her reply, “Dad, just one more hour pleaseeeeeeeeeee, I’ll wash the dishes and take out the trash for the rest of the week……”
The Reverse.