Spending Time with Our Father

 Putting Time with God into Practice:

This week I decided to practice three different exercises from the Devotional Classics text. Henri Nouwen suggested to:

1.      Spend time with God in solitude by actively listening and pushing aside distractions.

2.      Turn distractions into prayers.

3.      Schedule daily time with God.

After seeing these 3 exercises I knew that it was something that I need to even further commit to doing. Every day I scheduled time with God in the mornings during Breakfast and before I went to bed at night. I spent time with him in solitude in the mornings. I wake up make breakfast and get some coffee and go out to my table on the front porch. I start by listening to worship music while I eat my breakfast. During this time I also ask God to help me to stay focused on him. After worship and eating breakfast I began my time of devotion and then prayer. I then invited God to tell me or show me anything that he wanted to. On the days that I was more distracted I would begin to pray that I would not be distracted and would pray for whatever was distracting me. These practices really helped me feel closer to God, and added to a deeper time with the father.

 

Current Things Preventing me from Listening to the Voice of God:

    We all have areas of our life that needs improvement, and typically those areas are the very reasons we are be held from our full relationship with the father. Personally, I struggle with anxiety that at times turns into depression if I do not manage it appropriately. This is something that has held me captive, especially in the past, but still at times does. During my morning times of devotion I tell our Father that “I give you my control, worries, and fears today and everyday.” I recently started doing this after feeling convicted by my desire to control my life. Giving this up to the Lord daily has helped me tremendously, I am definitely struggling less, Praise be to God! I am able to connect with him easier and hear him more clearly when my thoughts are not preoccupied with anxiety.