Time for God

Dear Oaks,

I wonder if, like me, you sometimes look back to days when you were wonderfully aware of God’s presence? He seemed so close and you vowed that it would always be like this. Now you just wonder how you can return to Jesus as your first love. See Revelation 2:4-5.

Today I was reading the testimony of a Christian woman I know a little. She was musing over this very point. She described how in dark personal times last year she clung to the worship songs on her iPod in the middle of the night and devoured the psalms by day, reaching out constantly as a baby for its mother. During those dark times God seemed so near and yet now things were so much better personally and yet He seems more distant.

Of course there may be many reasons for this. Perhaps it is a time of testing; perhaps some sin has distanced her from God’s intimacy; perhaps He chose to be close to her because of her struggles?

But I was struck by the reason she gave. It was she said “because life had taken over”. She had got busy and was no longer craving God’s presence as she had done in the hard times. She concluded that what she needed to do was to carve out that time alone with Him once more. As some one once said “busyness rapes relationships.” Strong language but about a serious issue. We were created for relationship both with the Trinity and with each other.

This weekend 111 of us are off for the Oak Tree bi-annual weekend away. We will really miss those of you that cannot make it. It will not be the same without you and we look forward to sharing our experience with you when next we see you. Whether you are going or not, what can you do to re-connect more deeply with God? His promise in John 15 is that if we abide in Him we will bear much good fruit to the Fathers glory.

I finish with a quote from Bishop Jeremy Taylor in 17th Century.

“There should be in the soul halls of space, avenues of leisure, and high porticos of silence where God walks.”

Every blessing,

Mark

PS I would greatly value your prayers as I speak at a large gathering of
1,250 Scandinavian Christians in Stockholm over the next two days. My slots
are at 3pm GMT on Tuesday and at 0800 GMT on Thursday. The other speaker is
Bill Johnson, so no pressure there then!