Our Daddy God thoroughly enjoys hanging out with us. This time of prayer never needs to cease (1 Thessalonians 5:17). During our day, we do not have to do all of the talking to God, or kneel in His presence. We can listen, worship, and rest in companionable silence with our amazing Father as we go about fulfilling His plans for us all day long.
God loves for us to list His victories in our life, to thank Him for all of His benefits, and to bless His holy name (Psalm 103:1-2). In fact, God gave the Israelites special names for the times He intervened in their history.
He wanted them to celebrate His deliverance every year at the same time that the seed for His miracle bore fruit in each situation. We can do the same thing by keeping a diary or a calendar specifically dedicated to God’s milestones in our life. We focus on God’s provision, His character, His generosity and the fact that He cherishes His place in our life.
Remember Enoch? He and God were so close and intimate that one day God just took Enoch home with Him – body, soul and spirit. He never went through death into eternity. As Born Again Believers, we can look forward to this eternal home as well. Our last breath on earth is followed by our next breath in our celestial home.
God wants us to pass along His milestones in our life to our children. As my children were growing up, I used to keep a yearly calendar of all the times that God came through for our family. I do not know if they even remember my attempts to build all of us into faithful children of God, but I planted a seed there if nothing else.
One thing that the Israeli festivals had in common is that they were celebrations with food, friends, family, sharing the facts of God’s intervention for them, and a time of rest from their labors in order to celebrate and worship our Heavenly Father with their whole heart (Revelation 14:13; Matthew 22:37).
Eliminating time-consuming “busy work” from our life will give us more occasions to celebrate God’s involvement and intervention for us. We focus on intentionally spending more time with God’s Trinity within us – increasing both our intimacy with Him and our knowledge of His ways and will for us.
Prayer:
Father God, thank You for all the ways that You intervene in our life in order to improve our peace and joy and union with You. Help us to incorporate more times into our daily schedule to sit in Your presence, to praise Your holy name, and to bring our concerns to You rather than worrying about them needlessly (Matthew 6:27). Teach us to be still and to honor You as our God (Psalm 46:10).
Help us to find Your divine rest for our spirit, our soul and our body. Strengthen our inner being (Ephesians 3:16) to be able to resist the urge to win the approval of others by taking on too many ministries and opportunities to advance in our human pursuits. We want to focus on our spiritual maturity instead, and to enjoy intimate times in Your presence within us.
Thought for the Day:
As we sculpt time out in our day to enter God’s rest, we start to recognize the beautiful figure that God is carving out of our life; we begin to see the anointed tapestry that He is weaving from His point of view, rather than from the back side, that is filled with knots and changing colors; this spiritual view fills us with joy as it also drains away all of our stress and striving.
