Last Sunday at Jesus Culture Sacramento, Cody Williams spoke about being less focused on doing and more focused on Jesus who will do the "doing" through you. It was a great message about putting relationship with Jesus first. After all, everything good flows out of that!
I've recently had a revelation along similar lines about how I approach "devotionals."
I've been turned off by the "doing" and religious nature of devotionals for a while now. When I hear the word "devotional" I immediately connect it to religious obligation. The word is loaded with expectations and visions of reading the Bible, reading a snippet from "Our Daily Bread," glancing through Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (usually while, ummm, resting), or getting on my knees for a certain amount of time to petition God for a laundry list of request.
While I've known this approach wasn't working for me, I couldn't justify my experience with the need to spend time with God daily. If spending time with God each day didn't look like a devotional, what did it looked like? Did it mean spending more time praying? That sounded closer to the answer, but that still seemed to return me to a focus on some sort of "doing" again.
The encouraging conclusion I came to was that I just need to make space for my relationship with God. Once I starting making space for God, without specific expectations about the form, then I allowed myself to encounter God however he wanted to show up.
I had to learn, and am still learning, how to stop constantly talking or doing in order to just rest in God's presence. When I make space for God, one day I find myself resting in and meditating on his goodness. Another day, I'm praying for a friend. The next day, I'm journaling or writing a poem. The key I think is to
... just
...make
...the
...space.
I've recently had a revelation along similar lines about how I approach "devotionals."
I've been turned off by the "doing" and religious nature of devotionals for a while now. When I hear the word "devotional" I immediately connect it to religious obligation. The word is loaded with expectations and visions of reading the Bible, reading a snippet from "Our Daily Bread," glancing through Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (usually while, ummm, resting), or getting on my knees for a certain amount of time to petition God for a laundry list of request.
While I've known this approach wasn't working for me, I couldn't justify my experience with the need to spend time with God daily. If spending time with God each day didn't look like a devotional, what did it looked like? Did it mean spending more time praying? That sounded closer to the answer, but that still seemed to return me to a focus on some sort of "doing" again.
The encouraging conclusion I came to was that I just need to make space for my relationship with God. Once I starting making space for God, without specific expectations about the form, then I allowed myself to encounter God however he wanted to show up.
I had to learn, and am still learning, how to stop constantly talking or doing in order to just rest in God's presence. When I make space for God, one day I find myself resting in and meditating on his goodness. Another day, I'm praying for a friend. The next day, I'm journaling or writing a poem. The key I think is to
... just
...make
...the
...space.
I have always told students and others when I am preaching: "Do I think you should read your Bible every single day? Not necessarily. Do I think you should journal and read devotional material all the time? Not necessarily. Do I think you should connect with the heart of Jesus every day? Aaaaaabsolutely. And these things can serve you well in doing so, but they are not the focus."
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