God often uses the best little nuggets to bless us, but if we aren't in tune to them, we often simply pass them by without giving them a second thought.
Fortunately, I happened to be able to experience one of God's blessings as I recently had the opportunity to hear a young woman still in high school who gave a spoken word message about being still and about knowing that God is in control. Among the important messages that she conveyed in her monologue, and one of my big takeaways, was her emphasis on the importance of the "choice of investing time in getting to know the one who created me....to live in his teachings, and not just teach them to others because serving comes out of the overflow of time spent with God and not in substitute for it."
Wow! Truth, right!? How easy it is to fill our time with so many and positive obligations like serving at church, but sometimes we forget to leave time to stop and to fill ourselves with a kind of life-giving-caffeine-filled love that only our Father can provide. Thus, our serving can become another "to-do" on our long list of things,and it can feel like another weekly obligation instead of an overflow of joy that results from the time spent with God. God knew I needed to hear that.
I have been consumed with this Vine and Branches project that God has given to me. It's good; it's positive, but it has consumed me at the expense of being still, finding rest, and stopping to refill with the fuel of my God's word.
I started to get behind in my daily devotions, in my daily Bible reading, and even in my prayers by the time my head hit the pillow each night at 2:30AM or 3:30AM. I barely had time to close my eyes before I was asleep. I was burning myself out as I tried to do God's work, but I was forgetting about God while I was doing it. God knew I needed to hear that young woman's spoken message on that day, so He orchestrated that my son would have a basketball tournament on a Sunday in a city near a church that we normally do not attend.
My family visited that church on that Sunday so that God could have me hear this message. Message received, God: loud and clear.
That week, I took a break from the ministry God had called me to lead. I stopped. I fed my soul with God's word. I caught up on my daily reading, my daily devotions, my sleep.
The week of rest allowed me to see God’s goodness all around me again, which He has been opening my eyes to over and over again, thus inspiring this project in the first place. God wants us to notice Him, to see the good that He gives us, and not just take it all for granted because He is worthy to be praised in everything. Psalm 86:12 says, “I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.”
Notice that this verse does not have a clause that says, I will praise you and glorify you when I have time; it says forever and with all my heart. I believe that trying to live out God’s word allows us to see the good He has given us, which allows us to notice more.
