A day in Your courts is 
better than a thousand outside.
Psalm 84:10

If the pace and the push, the noise and the crowds are getting to you, it’s time to stop the nonsense and find a place of solace to refresh your spirit.

Deliberately say “no” more often. This will leave room for you to slow down, get alone, pour out your overburdened heart, and admit your desperate need for inner refreshment.

The good news is God will hear and He will help. The bad news is this: If you wait for someone else to bring about a change, things will only deteriorate.

All of us can testify, God does not speak to the hurried, worried mind. It takes time alone with Him and His Word before we can expect our spiritual strength to recover.

~ Swindoll

 

We are currently on the last morning of our family vacation. I was in a tizzy before we left because we really didn’t “have time” for this vacation. Our summer has been crazy and our schedule this month of September is remaining in the crazy…  We left the ground running when we hit the road headed to the beach and we will hit the ground running as soon as we pull back into our garage. That is where our family is at the moment… but this week we have stopped and we have rested and played and just enjoyed the stillness.

I have spent my early mornings this week here…

while the rest of the bunch slept in, me and my God have had our one on one time and it has been sweet…

It has been sweet because I have been still enough to hear Him through out the day. I have felt his whisper in my soul as He would share a new truth with me just because He wanted to…

As I sat there yesterday morning and watched the sun come up

 

I thought how nice it would be to sit here every morning and experience this stillness…

aahhh yes retire at the beach… every morning quiet time here looking out over the beach while I have my coffee and poptart

then take my study time on out to the beach, get hungry and go eat, and go back to the beach for more study, and go eat again, and go for an evening walk on the beach and sing my praises to my LORD… perfect right?

Perfect until I remember that I have just ignored all that God has called me as a believer to do.

How could I face my LORD when I stand before Him and say that I spent my last years of life walking the beach…

My prayer journal entry yesterday morning:

I can feel the temptation to come here and retire and just sit and talk with You and watch and listen to the waves. Yes, the temptation to say I have worked hard and lived full and now I shall rest and wait to die. I will spend each morning, noon, and night praising You for Your glory just as I am now… and I will completely ignore the billions of people around the world who need You and the Gospel of Christ. Oh Father that’s not how I want to leave this world. I want to go out in the heat of battle. I want to die a soldier delivering the gospel with my very last breath. A warrior for the Lord that the world was not worthy of…

It was here that my mind asked the question, Is it sin to covet heavenly treasures?

Because I do… I want heavenly treasures. I want to leave this world empty handed and discover my heavenly home full. I want to present my LORD gifts for His temple of the grandest kind… because He is worthy. I don’t want to leave this world full and stand before my LORD empty, just barely skirting in, having received all my worth on earth. I covet the heavenly treasures… I long to earn those treasures… not my salvation, I know I could never earn that, but I want to be worthy of the treasures that await me in heaven.

I thought how God? How in this place of such prosperity shall I be one of whom this world is not worthy? I do not know poverty, nor martyrdom, nor do I suffer lack of knowledge of Your Word due to government restrictions. My greatest battle is the battle to not conform, to not be caught up in the perversions of this world and choose sin over You… but even then no one will kill me if I choose sin. They will still welcome me in the church and in their homes.

It was here that God took me to Daniel.

Although I really can’t compare to Daniel. I haven’t been taken as youth from from my home and moved to a foreign country to serve a godless king… but the comparison comes in how Daniel served God faithfully in the midst of prosperity. Even when the king lavished riches and power on him he did not change. He remained a man of integrity, a man of high esteem, a man of faith, a man who was righteous. The money and power and position and fame did not make Daniel conform to the world around him.

Perhaps that was Satan’s hope…

Perhaps Satan thought I will make his name great in the land and the power will go to his head and he will fall… and possibly when that didn’t work he raised up jealousy in others to lead to his murder… but even in the face of death and lies and set-ups Daniel would not change who he was before God and God delivered him every time.

Daniel was the first book of the Bible I ever studied inductively. I began it a month after I was saved. I don’t believe that was a coincidence… It was divine planning and purpose.

I live in prosperity. I am not poor. I have a beautiful family and a beautiful home and a wonderful church. I sit under some of the most godly people I have ever known. My circle of friends are people who truly seek the LORD and dig into His Word for truth and direction. I come from a long line of believers… My life is not threatened. My beliefs are not mocked. I have been given the opportunity to feed  not just my kids the Word but at least forty to fifty others from birth to 11yrs old every Sunday morning…

I have absolutely nothing to complain about…

This I am reminded of now as I right this out… I am blessed. This is where God has put me. This is where I shall serve Him as a warrior. I may never die in battle in this land where I live… but these little ones I feed may face the battle fields. I know not what missionaries God has set before me. I know not what future political leaders, teachers, pastors, moms, dads, etc sit before me each Sunday morning… but I do know that if the Lord calls them to salvation and they say, yes LORD I will follow You, they will be soldiers and as the days grow more and more evil the battle ahead will intensify.

This is the gift that God has given me.

To prepare them for battle.

I will not supply them with rubber bullets and plastic swords… but I will give them the double-edged sword of the Word of God. I will teach them how to keep it sharp and ready as a good soldier should.

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,

and a two-edged sword in their hand.

Psalm 149:6

So I am going home.

I am going refreshed.

I am going refocused.

I am going ready to be about my Father’s business… whatever business He has called me too and I will do it to the best of my ability according to the power of His might and Spirit that works within me.

 

Don’t Waste Your Life – John Piper from sharethemessage on GodTube.