How to walk with God and keep your schedule.
Why do we separate our daily lives from God?
Meaning why do we have God time and then all the other time?
Why do we have devout time and then the time we have to spend with the world?
We treat our life experiences as if our time with God has been intruded upon and it becomes our mission to escape those ungodly places and those ungodly encounters to get back to the privacy of our godliness.
We separate God and the world as if they are in opposite corners of a boxing ring,
Believing those positive events of our lives to be of God and those negative events to be of the devil or at least an attempt to steal our divine joy.
But God created the world and everything within it.
If we are truly to embrace our relationship with God,
Then we must understand that there is no need to keep God separate from our daily life experiences.
Understand that all has been created for our good.
A simple statement,
Yet a complex proposition.
This means that every interaction we have with God's creation is meant to grow us in some way.
That means that every experience,
Interaction,
And situation,
Whether we personally judge it as uplifting or challenging,
Is meant to grow us.
If we are too quick to cast aside those negative events,
We run the risk of stalling our growth opportunity in that moment.
You see,
The secret of our growth is the God-presented adversity.
The potential within the seed does not become a tree without first pushing against and breaking through the shell to expand into the soil.
The strength of the butterfly's wings comes from the strain and struggle of breaking through and emerging from the chrysalis.
Our own muscles develop from pushing and pulling against a weight that is just heavier than what we can currently handle.
So don't seek to escape,
Nor to simply endure.
With each experience,
Take note of the growth you are gaining.
Take full responsibility for everything and everyone granted to your care.
The responsibilities granted to you,
Whether or not you received them willingly,
Are your opportunities to demonstrate the understanding of your growth and your godliness.
God has granted you stewardship,
The responsibility to properly manage all that is under your influence.
Do you know what your stewardship responsibilities are?
Very easily you can say your job,
Your money,
Or your family.
But you are also responsible for the stranger whose eyes you happen to lock upon.
The extension of a smile and a friendly nod of acknowledgement may be all the inspiration that person needs to move closer to God.
You are responsible for extending patience to that cashier whose line you've been standing in for the last 20 minutes,
Though he or she may not say so.
The grace and kindness you extend in that moment gives them the opportunity to reset and lose their defensive attitude.
You are responsible for the one who appears hungry or cold.
Though you may have no physical item to offer in the moment,
Do not be content to just walk away.
Ask God to inspire you so that the moment is not lost.
Let it be the rare occasion that you slack on your work or lash out at your family.
Take note when those moments happen and take yourself back to God,
Bearing full responsibility for your choices and behavior.
In the temptation of operating life outside of God,
It does feel good to lash out at another person when you feel you are right.
It does feel good to have more money,
Status,
And power than someone else.
It feels good to give into every impulse,
Every thought,
Every whim that comes to mind.
The illusion is that these feel-good moments are based on arbitrary and temporary foundations that seem sturdy but will crumble the moment you lay the weight of action upon them.
And the price of the temporary pleasure of standing atop that unstable heap are the cuts and bruises that result from landing hard in the pile of rubble of the consequences for your actions.
Know that experiencing God and experiencing your daily schedule are meant to happen simultaneously.
Your experiences for the day are divinely organized even if they appear to be a repeat of what you experienced yesterday.
Resist the temptation to only check in with God before your daily schedule begins or after it ends.
He is with you at all times.
Filter your experiences through Him and access Him constantly.
The very definition of praying without ceasing.
