Hello and welcome to another installment of Tea and
Tuesdays. For those of you following me
– thank you. I appreciate your
time. It was not your imagination that
there was not a post last week for July 21. I have
begun another journey of learning and enlightenment by beginning my studies to
obtain a Doctor of Ministry. This
journey will be interesting, fun, intense and, well, exciting. I am off to a good start and need prayers
(for those of you willing to pray for me).
I am asking God to enliven my study time and make reading, comprehension
and recall easy. I will have a lot of
writing to do but nothing that God can’t help me do – thank you in advance for
your prayers.
I have been talking with you over the last month about a relationship with God,
specifically how to talk with Him. Some
can’t decide if talking to God is effective and actually working in their
life. Does talking to God change
anything? Am I wasting my time? Does He hear me? Will He answer? When will He answer and just how will the
answer come? Most importantly, how will
I know that God has answered by prayers, other than the millions of dollars or
the husband arriving at my front door? (Smile a little bit – that was a joke!)
All of these are good questions and ones which I hope to
help with – in time. I want to talk to
you now about taking the time to talk with God.
I believe some of the things which make prayer hard are connected to barriers
in our lives. Barriers like busyness,
multitasking and distractions can block our ability to spend time with God.
As I write this I have had to slow myself way down to get
this blog done. Blogging is something
that is important to me, a dream I have kept for some time. You would not believe how many distractions,
interruptions and emergencies that occur when it’s time to
write. I am imagining these occurrences
will not differ when I begin writing for my school assignments and ultimately
my dissertation. I am also enjoying a
great cup of tea named “Calm” as I write.
I am not one to drink Chamomile often but it is helpful today.
I suggest this: maybe the reason you have not been able to
connect with God is you have not made time for Him. I recently met and have made friends with a
woman who prays each morning with God.
She has to restrain herself from praying too long so she can get to work
or do some of the other things her day would demand. I love her devotion to this task – she does
not stray often from this activity and believes talking with Him is the
beginning of any day in which she is alive.
I have had my struggles with being consistent in my time with God but
have found freedom and assurance in what appears to others as
“randomness”. To God and me, it is our
“appointments” which make our time together special.
I want to encourage you: make time for God on your
agenda. Block out a space (like an
appointment) in your schedule for you and invite God into this appointment. It might seem awkward at first but keep
trying. Start small – you can always
adjust the time later. Give yourself a 5
or 10-minute slot at first and see what happens.
Your barrier to hearing God might be rooted in not having
time for Him. Try the exercise I mentioned
above. Bring only a few things to this
time with Him, such as a Bible and/or a notebook. You don’t need a lot of things. Try this out for one or two weeks and see how
it goes. To establish it as a habit,
other authors have stated it takes 3 weeks (21 days) to create a habit. If you are feeling brave, try your experiment
for three weeks and see what happens.
Let me know how your experiment is working. I want to hear whether you found my
suggestions helpful or if you still struggle to pray and meet with God. Next week I will talk about another barrier
to hearing God and having conversations with Him.
I would like to hear what your favorite teas are (if you
have some). I would be willing to try
new ones.
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