It happens so quickly, without our even noticing really.  Life just gets full and schedules crammed.  A wonderful woman I know calls them “sandwich days”–everything is just piled on top of each other. It doesn’t all fit and something has to go.  You know what the something is, don’t you?

Life calls and kids call and dinner calls and the boss calls and the empty pantry calls and something just has to give.

I don’t think many of us who earnestly love the Lord really intend to leave Him out of nearly so many of our days as He actually gets left out of.  It just happens. Over and over again, it just happens. Great intentions just don’t find a translation into our appointment book.

Here’s the problem though.  If we leave Him out of our days too often we start to forget things.  If we aren’t purposefully putting Him before us, two things happen. One, we start to forget what we knew, and two, we don’t learn anything new to replace it!

Moses knew that this was the way it worked.  Throughout Deuteronomy, he reminds the Israelites of where they’ve been, what they’ve been through, what God has done for them and revealed to them.  He knew that if they weren’t constantly reminded of these things, they’d start to lose them.  Then they would stop seeing the importance of having known them at all.  Next thing they’d know, they’d be killing their kids like barbaric pagans!  Moses saw it all coming.

He attempted to help them remember, he attempted to give them instructions that they could live by, he attempted to give them some step by step tools to keep them moving forward.

Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in His ways and revering Him.                                                                                           Deuteronomy 8:6

There are a few truths that we have to concede to:  if you don’t do something very often, you’re going to forget how.  Not all of life is like riding a bike.  If you aren’t moving forward, there is a really good chance you’re moving back.  Not much in life is actually sedentary, most things move one way or the other.

A common fear I hear about when someone has lost a loved one is that they are afraid that they will forget about them, their face, their voice, their mannerisms. This is a legitimate fear because that person isn’t there as a constant reminder of those things.  When something isn’t in front of you, it just gets easier and easier to forget.  Actually, it seems to happen without our even noticing.

Moses’s instructions to his people were designed to keep some things out in front, right before their faces.

Observe the commands of the Lord.  He means learn them, he means know them like the back of your hand, he means that we should spend time every day looking at them, pondering them, contemplating their meaning and value.  If you want to make sure that you don’t backslide, if you want to keep moving forward, plug away at observance. Find a way to integrate the Word into your life and your day and your work and your conversations.

Walk in His ways.  You take the info in, but then you do something with it.  Plenty of really smart people can learn all about what the Bible has to say.  Knowing doesn’t translate to growth until it moves from your head to your hands.

Revere Him.  I really like this word.  It means to regard with respect and love and fear and awe.  It has both a fearful, impersonal side but also a sweet, endearing side to it.   It’s a good word for how we are to relate to the Lord.  He is, like Aslan, both frightening and powerful, and tender and intimate.

We are to see both sides of our Maker.  We need to recognize and acknowledge the fact that He is due every minute of your time, He deserves to have every line of your calendar say “taken for the Lord Himself.” We also need to see His attention to us as personal and kind, sweet and affectionate, near and gentle.

If you do not remember the Lord daily, you may very well forget Him slowly.  If you do not grow in spirit, you will wither in your soul. If you are not purposeful in your walk, you may find yourself irrevocably far from your intended destination.

Life is going to happen, your schedule will not slow down any time soon, there will always be someone who needs you.  We give time to that which we deem important.  How important is your walk with the God who loves you?

Practical ideas for translating these things that your head knows well into practices that your schedule can handle:

Actually write devotional times into your schedule daily and begin to hold to them as ardently as you would a date with a friend or meeting with your boss.

Learn to meditate. And I don’t mean yoga.  During your devotional times, tune your heart to hear God’s prompting on verses that may speak to your needs some time later.  Make a note of that verse, mull it over, write it out on a small card (business card size works really well because it will fit both in your pocket and your car’s cup holder).  Take it around with you and peek at it throughout the day. Attempt to memorize it and let it become words that you turn over in your mind so often it’s like a favorite, catchy song.

Refuse to neglect time with the Lord on ANY day.  Do not let a day pass when you have not sat before the God who gave you that day to begin with and tell Him thanks for it, ask Him to take your burdens that have sprung out of it, and acknowledge His right to every minute of it.

Start small, but refuse to stay there.  If you currently spend little to no time alone with the Lord, be willing to do just a bit more.  Be content with growth.  Don’t shoot for the moon, just pick up one size heavier weight than what you’ve been carrying.  And when that becomes somewhat effortless, move to the next.  Don’t beat yourself up, just “work it out.”  (Philippians 2:12-13)

Don’t hand-pick Bible parts.  Be willing to read parts that no one’s ever taught you, be willing to read the Old Testament!, be willing to concede that the Lord can speak and work and guide you through every word on those pages.  If you don’t feel a “leading” toward one place or another, pick one!  It does not mean God doesn’t care if you read it!  Go for Psalms and see if you can relate, go for Proverbs and see what all advise you wished you’d had a week ago, go for John and see how cool it is that the God who came up with the idea for earwax and butterflies is also the God who let Himself be bottled up in a baby body just to be able to relate to you! You feel you lack reverence, read Exodus and watch Him part seas and open the earth’s floor, make dead branches bud fruit over night and leprosy appear instantly.  How can one not revere a God who can make the sun hide all day?

Learn to be quiet.  Pay attention to your day tomorrow.  How much time do you actually spend in absolute silence, no car radio, no phone conversations, no television, no kids.  I can hear you talking right now – “it’s never quiet!  How can I have quiet when it doesn’t exist in this house!” My challenge, pay attention to your day and I would almost be willing to bet my house that there are times you aren’t utilizing that aren’t, but could be quiet moments.  (Keep in mind, that earplugs might be necessary!)  Are you ever alone in the car?  Instant quiet.  Do people come into the kitchen with you when you cook dinner?  Perfect quiet, even a nice “white noise” background.  Shower?  Late night?  Early morning?  Grocery store?  I can go on, you know. The point, it is hard to hear a God who refuses to yell at you when you never let your life get quiet enough to listen to Him.

Approach your relationship with this great God like you would a relationship with a “difficult” friend, they require a little extra time, you have to stick it out and invest it in, try to never break a promise to them, don’t be afraid of a “quiet pause.”  (fyi:  your the difficult one in this scenario)

This incredible God that we serve, He is so worth it.  He is real and present, He is fun and attentive, He is creative and kind, He is concerned and wise, He is so smart and adventurous, He is deserving, He is due.

It seems only fitting.  I begin this whole blogging thing one day and I am struck with a weight of humility that I hate knowing that I’m in such a position as to carry.  The lesson, I am to approach this God-given act with great humility.

I went to work on my lesson for tomorrow’s Bible class when I found myself stuck on the biblical location of a particular passage.  I did all my usually mind-searching, I attempted to search key words on my favorite Bible app, I looked through notes and memory verses.  Still don’t know where it is.  Frustrating.

I doubt myself.  I doubt my connection to the Father.  I doubt, I fume, I plead with the Lord.

I listen.

Humility.  It’s about humility.  In the wake of beginning a new venture for and with the Lord, I must approach the task with the utmost humility.  There is much that I don’t know, there is much to learn, there is much for which I must depend on Him and on others, there is so very much room to grow.

I don’t consider myself proud.  Who does. But I have certainly lived in the clutches of a plaguing sin area, pride in my humility. Strange combo, but my life clearly attests to it’s existence.  Pride of any sort must be laid aside.  If I am to serve, if I am to fellowship, if I am to lead, and teach, and write, and grow, pride must be laid aside.

Proverbs 11:2 – When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs 29:23 – Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.

High goals to strive for, wisdom and honor.

I am currently working on a lesson about what it means to be a priest as we are declared to be in I Peter 2:9.  One of the things that it means is that you will be used.  You will be used to teach, to lead, to intercede, to administer the Law, to encourage; in summary, you will be poured out in any way that your great God finds of advantage for the sake of His kingdom and the advancement of His glory. To be a priest means to give up all of your life and your desires, your plans and your agenda, your possessions and your dreams.  To lay them at the altar of the Lord of all Creation to be used as He sees fit.

To be a priest means to concede that you are merely an instrument in the hands of Someone great, being only a humble tool of His bidding.

And so we begin here, with an acknowledgment of our need to humbly approach whatever task He sets our hands to.  May I serve Him with profound humility today.

Pneuma.  Great word.  The Revelation of Jesus Christ that John recorded in the final book of God’s Word to us was given to him on this occasion — “on the Lord’s day, I was in the Spirit.”  That second phrase is the one word, pneuma.

Many years ago, I endeavored to study the Revelation.  It was God’s decision, not mine, I have to be honest on that.  I doubted and second guessed Him pretty ardently too.  I didn’t know a thing about it, but that only served to convince me that I wasn’t the one to get that ball rolling!  If my preacher wasn’t going to touch it with a ten foot pole, who was I to even make the attempt.

From the very beginning though, I knew, felt, sensed, had it confirmed to me that I was on the right path.  The first chapter of Revelation is quite beautiful.  He knows that it’s hard, so He makes sure-right from go-that we are made aware that it is worth it.

One line, well many actually, but the one that pertains to today’s thought, seemed to hover over the page as I picked through the beauty of God’s character expressed in those first verses.  It’s actually just after.  John tells us how all of this vision came to be, this revelation that the Lord imparted to him, revealed to him in advance of it’s coming to fruition.  John tells us the basic facts; I was here, it was this day, it happened like this. Then comes my word, pneuma.  In the Spirit.  The definition of this word according to Strong’s concordance is pretty lengthy.  English is quite limited as languages go, so this word doesn’t translate well, it misses a lot of the deep meaning.  Strong’s tries to clear it up for us.

Pneuma is “the element in man which gives him the ability to think of God. It is man’s vertical window.”

I am a nature girl.  I heard it recently said that music and nature are two of the more powerful stigmas that draw us into the presence of the Lord.  I get both, but nature just overwhelms me.  As I pondered this great revealing granted to this aging man who had walked with my Jesus, found himself loved deeply by Him, I found myself clearly visualizing him in this moment.

He was on the island of Patmos, not alone there, but exiled, not without provisions, but without his former life.  I’ve never seen it, but I have the picture more than clearly.  I see an old bearded man on a sandy beach staring out over the ocean that profoundly moves me.  He doesn’t sit, he doesn’t stand.

I like old windows.  I have the old windows from my first house over my sofa.  My wonderful husband had them restored for me and made into picture frames.  This is how I see our old disciple.  There is a window suspended from nowhere.  It hovers at just the right height amid the sandy beach.  And there relaxes John.  I picture him propped in the seal, looking a bit like Huck Finn.  He’s got one leg propped up on the seal and the other swinging freely below him, feet dragging in the sand.

There John met with his Maker.  He visited with his old friend.  He thought on his God.  He heard and saw and worshipped and communed.  I doubt that this was his first visit to that window.  I doubt that it was his last.

Like David, my greatest desire is to live my life in the sanctuary of my God, to enjoy the peace of His presence all the days of my life.  My greatest desire is to live out my days propped peacefully in my own vertical window, that place where my mind, spirit, soul, all of me is capable of thinking on that which isn’t visible but is indeed all that truly lasts.

God has graciously allowed me to set aside great amounts of time lately to do just this.  I believe that I am to do it for myself as well as others.  To those of you who would like to pull your window up next to mine, welcome.