I have been working at my new job for a few weeks now. Everything is alright there but it is not without its sacrifices. Because Amanda and I are both working extended hours and are not home at the same time very often, we do not get to spend much quality time together. Even when we do have a little time at night, the time is usually spent preparing for the next day, cleaning the house, or something else that seems like it needs to get done.
By the time the weekend comes it is not uncommon to be craving spending time together. This may look like going to the grocery store together, watching netflix, or even sitting together doing our work.
On my drive in to work this morning I was pondering why we don’t treat God this way? I mean, we* are pretty good at the first part, filling our schedules so that we have little time to spend with Him, but do not crave that time when it does become available. In fact the times that I do find myself craving time with God are few and far between, and it takes a lot more than a long week of work to make me crave Him.
I think that in my case this is likely because of the way that I am tempted to see spending time with God. If you look at my to-do list or at my calendar you might see “read bible” or “devotionals” or some other code-word for “spend time with God at this time of the day.” If I only spent time with Amanda when it was in my schedule, I doubt that she would be satisfied with what this says about my priorities and God deserves even more. God is relational, and our relationship with him should be (and often isn’t) on the top of our priority lists.
In the coming weeks, I hope to expound on this topic a little bit more because it has been something that has really affected my walk with Christ and my marriage. I will have other posts interspersed, but I want to spend some time diving deeper into what God has to say and the practical implications of treating Him relationally as opposed to treating him like a task to accomplish and giving that relationship the highest priority, end long run-on sentence.
As always, I encourage you to be part of the conversation by commenting below and sharing your thoughts.
*When I say “we” I mean here people, in general, but mostly me.
On Things Above Us 
Hey, Daniel,
I read your post right after reading an article about the change in worship styles, the combination of articles lead me to some thoughts on worship and time with God.
When you say “spending time with god” it seems as though your examples could also be categorized as studying scripture to better discern the nature and character of God. Although the study of God’s word is an important part of our worship it is not our only way to spend time with God. We are called to live in community with God (although I don’t admit to succeeding in that), I would consider the time that we spend consciously trying to model our actions and lives after Christ as spending time with (in community) with him.
It is difficult to spend our free time studying God’s word, but another way we can spend time with God is by doing our utmost to model his way of life.
Thoughts?
LikeLike
I am glad that it was thought-provoking and I completely agree. Reading the word is a great way to hear God speaking to us, but it is not the only way that we can spend time with God. There are a lot of ways that we can spend time with Him including reading, journaling (apparently word and the internet thinks journaling isn’t a word, who knew), prayer, listening, singing, modeling his actions, as you mentioned, and related, perhaps most importantly, living a life that is glorifying to Him.
John Piper, a modern theologian and pastor, has a great catch phrase that I think speaks to this idea wholeheartedly; “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” The trick is that we will be most satisfied in Him when we spend time “consciously trying to model our actions and lives after Christ.” Living a life according to what He has called us will be the most satisfying and glorifying life.
This is part of the things that I am hoping to write more about in the future. We should not treat God as a chapter we must read, but instead know Him, the same way that we yearn to know other people. The implications of the exact thought that you are sharing here are enormous and drastically change the way that we interact with God!
LikeLike
Also, on a separate note, the implications of your distinction between spending time with God and studying and discerning His character could be summarized in a line from a play you may know
“¿Y qué? Incluso los demonios creen en Dios, pero ellos son extraños para él. Ahora, tú eres un extraño para Dios, así que Dios no te conoce. No solamente es creer en Dios, necesitas conocer a Dios. Tienes que conocer a tu creador ahora, por tu propia voluntad, mejor que…tu sabes …más tarde.” – Messenger from Everyouth
LikeLike