Resolution #6- Spend DAILY time with God

This is very personal, but I am trying to transform so here we go...

For me, sometimes I feel like I do spirituality in HUGE buffet portions instead of daily nourishment. By that I mean, I will dedicate a day of my week to for instance reading the book of romans (in its entirety) or I will wait until time to go to bed to talk to God for 30 minutes about everything. My goal was to stop giving chunks of my time to God, to stop "planning" to spend time with him and to focus more on giving tidbits of my time daily, offering up prayers continuously, etc. Does that make sense?

So here's what I have been doing. Please keep in mind, I am not at all trying to be "preachy" here, I am simply trying to convey what I personally struggle with and am working on in my relationship with God.

Aiden and I started BSF (bible study fellowship) classes on wednesday mornings. This is the first year EVER in bsf history that they have allowed babies younger than 2 to attend with their mommies. Bsf is over 50 years old and it's childrens program is amazing! So I always knew that as soon as aiden was old enough to go with me, I wanted to do this but they just now (in january) started allowing babies younger than 2. If you have no idea what bsf is or is about you can look at their website. So anyways we are studying the book of John this year and it has been SUCH a blessing to me. I am loving this study, I am loving pouring over Christ's words to his disciples, I am loving being with these women. I am loving that this gives me a study I do every single day and that it is so in depth into God's word. We take little pieces of scripture and spend an entire week studying a few passages. I think I have been missing so much of what God had to reveal to me through His word by taking it in big chunks instead of praying and pondering over just a few scriptures at a time. I cannot even begin to explain how wonderful this has been for me.

Secondly, I am trying to focus on reading inspirational books instead of the fluff fiction that I normally read. I will be honest here, when I first made this goal for myself, I had decided I was going to read "If God is Good" by Randy Alcorn. I had also decided that I wanted to complete this book before I wrote this particular blog...before I revealed that this was a resolution of mine, I wanted to be done with my first "spiritual" book. Somewhere around the 4th chapter in this book, I realized God was revealing SO much to me. I was highlighting like crazy and then going back and reading over what I had highlighted and stopping to pray over the words I had just absorbed. I started to realize that even in my resolution to change I was doing things in my old ways. I was wanting to rush through the book so that I could "report it" instead of absorb it. I will not go into the depths of the book. It is an amazing but substantial read.

Thirdly, was to transform my prayer life into a continuous communication instead of a certain block of time and a certain hour of the day. I still pray at particular times of day (morning and night) but I try to stop what I am doing when I feel something weighing on my heart and mind and offer it up there and then instead of filing it away to pray for later.

This resolution is not for 2010, it is something I will continue to evolve and transform throughout my life. As all of us christians know, we go through peaks and valleys. In our lives most certainly but in our relationships with God also. Here is what I am learning and trying to put into place in my own life though...God loves us more than any other person in our lives but often times we spend less time working on that relationship than we do with any other relationship. It should be the MOST important relationship we have, but often times it gets the least amount of time. I have found that my relationship with God is much like my relationship with ben, or my mom, or my friends, or all the important people in my life. If you spend time nourishing the relationship, if you spend quiet time with one another, the relationship will grow, the relationship is stronger. When you neglect the relationship, the relationship becomes strained. So that is my goal, to spend daily time nourishing my relationship with God. To give him tidbits from all of my moments and to take my thoughts and prayers to him when I think of them, the moment my heart is feeling them instead of waiting for a specific hour to be called into the throne room. This week in bible study our leader said

"Our goal is to commune with God continuously, to use words when necessary."

And that truly is the meaning behind this resolution. I can tell you this particular resolution has transformed me more than any of my others. I feel the holy spirit working in my heart and in my life on a DAILY basis. I feel connected to God in a personal and deep way that I have lacked in the past. I still struggle...I sometimes miss doing my bible study one day and double up the next day. I still sometimes choose to sit down and watch TV when I had "planned" to read my book. I don't think the point is to be perfect at it. The purpose is to make it a priority, the point is to long for the relationship, to hunger and thirst for the Word. Not to force yourself to go through the motions.

This was a very hard resolution for me to put into words because it is so deep within me, there are no real specifics (which we all know I'm big on) and it is very personal. I am continually blessed by sharing my resolutions and even though this one was hard for me to want to put on the blog, I am glad that I have!

Oh and also (I know it's saturday) I just share these resolutions when the spirit moves me, in this particular case LITERALLY but I'm trying to share one a week, you'll just have to keep checking to see which DAY of the week they actually fall on!