Time With God
Someone recommended I find a spot where I can be alone – without distractions and spend time alone with God. Wisely he recommended I start slowly and work my way into the practice. I have been doing this myself for the last couple weeks, and then I ran across this in one of my devotionals:
Practice Spiritual Concentration
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it is only the bedroom (for a while I retreated to the furnace room for want of a better place). Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God's presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it. Stop trying to compete with others. Give yourself to God, and then be what and who you are without regard to what others think. Reduce your interests to a few. Don't try to know what will be of no service to you. Avoid the digest type of mind—short bits of unrelated facts, cute stories and bright sayings. Learn to pray inwardly every moment. After a while you can do this even while you work. Practice candor, childlike honesty, humility. Pray for a single eye. Read less, but read more of what is important to your inner life. Call home your roving thoughts. Gaze on Christ with the eyes of your soul. Practice spiritual concentration.
Lord, lift my gaze from the clutter and distractions around me and give me a "single eye" for that which is eternal. Amen.
A. W. Tozer, Tozer on the Almighty God: A 366-Day Devotional, (Camp Hill, PA: Wingspread, 2007), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 50-51.
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I am the Pastor of Greater Life Church, Elko, NV. Husband, father, grandfather, regular guy who happens to believe that Jesus has great plans for all of our lives and we need cooperate with Him in order to see those plans happen.