You can find the video here: https://www.facebook.com/RichlandNaz/videos/783921168767966/
Yesterday I talked about creating sacred space. Today I want to talk about creating sacred time. Aren’t those the same? Well yes and…no.
In creating a sacred space, we sometimes must take ordinary space and make ourselves present to God. Remember that He is always present to us, but there are times where we need to carve out some space, no matter where we are and be present with Him. In a park, at the mall, at school, on a trip, the place can be literally anywhere we make ourselves present to God to pay attention to Him.
It is true that God is always present with us, but there are times that we are not always present to Him. And Jesus asks us no less than He asked of the Disciples, that we give to Him our lives completely. When we think about it, do we truly have anything else of value? And it only that since He loves us so much, He wants us – us – you, me, others – in fact, He wants anyone who will listen to Him and follow Him. But that requires us to carve out some time to spend with Him. Not just now and then, regular and intentional time with Him.
Think about this for a moment, a couple years ago, I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. This was probably one of the sost discouraging things I had ever heard or experienced in my life. Mainly because it’s preventable. And in my mind I just didn’t care enough about myself to take care of myself. I let myself get to the point of having an A1C level of 10.3. They wanted to put me on insulin, but I wouldn’t let them, I refused.
It wouldn’t be until about a year later that Bobbi came home and we together started a change of life with our relationship to food. We went from living to eat, to eating to live – I know, it’s a play on words – but a total adjustment in how we did things nutritionally.
Within less than a year, we lost significant amounts of weight and have been keeping it off. We have gotten off of almost every medication. Both of us down from literally handfuls of medications in the morning and night to one medication and now some vitamin supplements.
Now we both knew that we were morbidly obese and very unhealthy. So our changes were so that we could be healthier, not skinny, healthier. It’s a focus, a why for how we are living our lives. Is being a disciple of Christ any different?
It wasn’t until we were faced with serious health issues that we actually made the changes needed to extend our lives. We found motivation in our grandkids. We wanted to be able to be part of any and all of our grandkids lives, present and future. This is important, because it took and takes discipline to stay healthy. And so does living this spiritual journey of being a disciple of Christ.
We need to not only carve out space, we also need to find a rhythm to life that allows us regular consistent time to sit and be still and know God. Not just know about God, truly know Him and His love for us.
Romans 11:13-18 (NIV) I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. Did you hear that last sentence, “You do not support the root, but the root supports you.”
We need to carve out time and be present with God, in whatever space we are in so we can nurture our relationship with Him.
If I have witnessed anything during this time of isolation, I have been witness to the desire to be self sufficient in all of this mess we are in.
When our spirituality is characterized by self-sufficiency, rather than being dependent upon God, we find ourselves further and further from Him. And the further we move away from the less our soul is consumed with a passionate desire for Him. Far too often we find ourselves scrambling to find God in the tough times, when we could have been with Him cultivating a daily, ongoing, deepening relationship with the Creator.
When it comes down to it, we want to be camels, instead of what we are built to be, and that is sheep. The sheep need the shepherd daily. A camel can wander and not need water or food for lengths of time, because they store it up in their hump for use later. but we weren’t built for lengthy times in the desert, we were built for green pastures and still waters. We were built for that regular, satisfying access to the presence of God in our souls.
Don’t give up just because this sounds hard. It’s not – it just takes time, sacred time. It doesn’t happen overnight. I know people in their 90’s who are hungry for God and for His Word. They are even more hungry for His presence in their lives than they were at the beginning of their journey. And they’ve been doing this so much longer than I have. They didn’t get there overnight – it takes practice and it takes a little discipline. It all starts with us asking Him to invade our lives – Holy Spirit come.