Life gets busy. As parents, we often find ourselves spending our evenings or weekends driving from one event to another. Birthday parties. Sports. Fund raisers. They all vie for our time. As grandparents, we still work to find a balance between our own personal schedule and being available to assist with grandkids. There never seems to be enough hours in our day.
Church life is often the same. Whether your church body is large or small, there is always something that needs to be done. Clean-up at the church. Church dinners. Services. Prayer meetings. Counseling. Small groups. They all are important and even necessary for the life of the local body. But at times we find ourselves drained. Poured out in our giving and needing our own refreshing.
In the gospels, we are taught a pattern of how to stay above the busyness of life and remain full. Christ was not only human but was fully God in the flesh. He was there when all of creation came to life. He spoke it into existence. Yet He still recognized that dependency on time with His Father was His strength.
Christ's ministry on earth exploded over night. Crowds gathered everywhere He went. People sought Him out to listen to His teaching or to be healed of an infirmity. Luke 5 gives the account of Christ healing a leper. The leper was to tell no one, but it was a miracle that just couldn't be hidden. Word spread quickly.
"However, the report went around concerning Him all the more: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed" (Luke 5:15, 16).
What a picture of humbleness and submission! Here was God's Son, the miracle-maker man, with crowds following Him everywhere, pulling away from it all to pray!
It's in the silence, that alone time with Him, that we hear the still small voice. When we choose to see that nothing is as important in life or ministry as our time with Him, that's when we find that our full plate is now manageable with grace.
Let's follow His steps today. Shut out the world. Sit before His feet. And just listen to His voice. You will be amazed at how much time you will find with the rest of your day!
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