Becoming Best Friends With God
Originally Written August 27, 2009
Today, I read Mark 1-9
Point to Ponder:
- God wants to be my best friend.
Question to Consider:
- How could I remind myself to talk to God more often throughout my day?
As a fairly recent adopter of prayer (devotee, I suppose), I feel as though I've already made at least a small amount of headway on today's topic. However, I'm also well aware that I have a much longer way to go.
Honestly, it took me a few days to get into regular evening prayer. A voice in my head kept telling me that unless I believe, I'm wasting my time talking to the ceiling. That, though, seemed more likely to apply to atheists than to seekers, so I've continued. I'm afraid sometimes that my prayers aren't all that deep, but they are always offered in the sincere spirit of one who longs to know more. Given my nature, that was actually a pretty easy posture to adopt.
For whatever reason, though likely related at least in some small way to His eternal nature, God has proven quite patient of my processing. Yet I feel He's constantly lobbing non-coincidences at me to get my attention.
Tonight is a perfect example, actually. I just came from a meeting/calling party with a team charged with revamping the Dive-In process at Quest. Pretty ironic, since from a spiritual standpoint I have yet to dive myself. But, I've spent the last few weeks since we began Courageous Choices at Quest pondering how I'm perhaps most stingy with my time. (Pastor Pete gave us four possible trouble spots: fear, time, money, and heart). Anyhow, I've been processing that and wondering what I can do about it. I added it to my prayer list last week - specifically, asking for guidance as to how I could better use my time to help causes bigger than me.
Almost immediately after that came the Home at Last board appointment, then this weekend at Life Group the guy in charge of the Dive-In entrustment asked if I knew how to manipulate data in Excel, and if so would I help him with his project.
So frankly, and to come back around to today's topic, I'm perfectly willing to expand my prayer time but the "coincidences" are piling up too fast for me to explain them away. I'm actually a little leery of expanding the volume!
That said, though, I'm glad I've already tried prayer and feel as though it has offered me time to commune and fellowship with a God I haven't even fully accepted yet. If He is tolerant - actually, if He goes beyond mere tolerance and actually welcomes me regardless - then that just serves to clarify all that's right with God and all that's wrong with me. But, having recognized that, I can also work to fix it!
Verse of the Day
"Friendship with God is reserved for those who reverence him."
- Psalm 25:14a (LB)
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