One of my favourite Christian speakers ‘Heidi Baker’ (co-founder of Iris Ministries http://www.irismin.org/) had a vision of the Western Church (see U tube clip Heidi Baker: Intimacy for Miracles). She saw us feasting on stale breadcrumbs rather than fresh bread from heaven in terms of our relationship with the Lord. This got me thinking about the time I spend with Jesus. Am I feeding on "stale breadcrumbs" or is my relationship with Him fresh, exciting, hunger quenching, and filling like beautiful warm fresh bread? Jesus said that He is the bread of life and no one would go hungry if they come to Him! (John 6:35). We cannot live life without being in His Presence. As Heidi says we need Him 24/7 else we are pretty much dead! I don’t know about you, but my time spent with Jesus can be sometimes more like breadcrumbs than a nice big tasty loaf….
Example of an early morning time we God:
Sit in my chair in the morning (still half asleep!)
Quick prayer: “Lord please help me to concentrate on your word and hear from you today. Amen”
Open my Bible and daily reading, read the section…
(Random thoughts come into my head: "what am I going to eat tonight? Oh my goodness mustn’t forget to take so and so to work’..... Whoops sorry Lord concentration gone again.!”)
Finish reading my scripture passage, quick prayer, note down something that seems to have struck home from the reading, assume it’s the Lord saying something… think to myself that I should really dig deeper into the bits I don’t understand but feel I just don’t have time this morning.
Get out my prayer list, pray for some of my friends on the list. Then notice that the time is running away with me and I only have 20 minutes to get washed and dressed and leave the house for work. Ahhh help!!..........
So times with the Lord can easily become like other aspects of our lives – we put it in a box i.e. "I’m going to make this time for the Lord." Then we can rush through it, we can follow all to familiar patterns that no longer excite our relationship with God. We loose our hunger because our quiet-times are all too much about what we do and the prayers we say rather than listening to God and spending intimate time receiving from Him, hearing His voice and being in His presence. Thus fresh becomes stale and we get into the trap of not allowing time to hear God’s voice but somehow telling ourselves because we have read a particular passage, prayed for a few people we have somehow spent time with Jesus. Furthermore, I think because we are not necessarily expectant and hungry to hear God’s voice sometimes we don’t even try to do so.
Might I suggest that sometimes our time with the Lord becomes ‘busy’ because we are scared He might not speak to us and are not quite sure how we are supposed to hear Him anyway?.... Then during the day, like me, you might make snatches of prayer to the Lord, “Lord help me with this, and help me to keep calm in this meeting!” Sometimes by the evening you find you can’t even remember the passage you read that morning or the time you spent with the Lord. Why? Because there is no excitement and we are not engaging with our God.
So where did the relationship go, the fresh bread from heaven? The word tells us that, "Jesus is the bread of life!" Bread is tasty, sustainable, satisfying, hunger quenching (especially when it is warm and fresh from the oven!) The word also tells us that our relationship with God is not based on “eloquent words” or “a matter of talk” but about Christ crucified and the demonstration of the Spirit’s power (1 Corinthians 2: 1-5 and 4:20). Resting in the Holy Spirits presence enables us to understand God (1 cor 2:12) because it is the Spirit that searches both our hearts and the deep things of God (1 Cor 2:11-12).
I believe God wants us to learn to rest in the presence of the Holy Spirit. He longs to envelopes us in His love and it is He that provides healing and counsel. After all Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is our Counsellor and will teach us all things (John 14:26). As we rest in the Holy Spirit's presence we will discover more about what the Father is like. I’ve found that by resting in his presence, He often leads me to read scripture that is not necessarily on my ‘scripture reading list’ and He breaks through my routine and I hear His voice more clearly. Don’t get me wrong I think systematic reading of the Bible is a good and important to do but making sure you are also allowing time to be still and are open to hearing his voice. I find it helpful to try not to worry if my mind wanders. It may be that I find myself thinking of something the Lord wants me to pray about! Try not to be concerned if you find it hard to hear him, you have made yourself available and the Lord knows that!
I find it can be hard to do these thing when life is so busy but I don’t think busyness is necessarily an excuse for us to leave God out. I think somehow rather than fit God round our busyness we need to learn to fit our lives around spending time with Him. After all life is all about Him! Your relationship with your best friend or your spouse is a two way thing. It’s not about you talking and doing things all the time, it is also about just enjoying being in their presence, not necessarily saying anything at all!
And when you go about your day remember God is an omnipresent God, he is everywhere, and just as present in your workplace as in your ‘quiet-times’ so ask the Lord to fill you with his Holy Spirit so you can be a fragrance for Him wherever you go. Ask him to enable you to hear Him when you are in conversation with others, He wants to give you wisdom from above and maybe the words in your interactions with others.
Further reading on this subject:
Listening to God – by Joyce Hugget see Amazon
Always Enough- by Heidi Baker see Amazon
1 Corinthians chapter 2
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