Does time slip through your hands?

Do you really have time to read this blog?  

Is it that important?  Well, it might be.....  

Just maybe this is the one that will touch your life, transform your thinking, give you the push you need to change your life.

Sometimes you only think you don't have time, we can all make time if we make an effort.  You think that maybe it can wait or it's not all that important really.  

But if you thought it was important enough to consider doing in the first place then lack of time should never be the reason to forego whatever it was that you planned to do.

It's amazing how many reasons you can come up with to not do certain tasks if you try hard enough.  Like spending time with your children....... walking the dog.....  having breakfast with your family......  learning a new skill......  finishing household tasks......  spending quiet time with God......  reading your bible......  going to church......  just to mention a few.

All important and all time consuming.  How can we fit it all in?  "Time just seems to slip through my hands", I hear you say.  

When I first came to know Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, it was at a time in my life when I was so ridiculously busy that I was pretty much working twelve to sixteen hours a day.  Plus spending time with my son, riding and schooling my horse and keeping my musical skills up to date.  So when I started trying to spend time with God as well it meant that I went to bed about 2am and got up at 5am.  

It didn't take a genius to realise that I wouldn't be able to keep this up for long.  So my answer was to start praying for longer days! No, really, nothing is impossible for God I so it was worth a try!  This was somewhat reminiscent of my tail growing days which I write about in a previous blog.  But jokes aside, I needed God to sort this one out and soon.

As promised, God found a way through; some of my workload lessened and I was able to reduce the time I spent on admin and therefore started to go to bed a bit earlier.  I also started to try to spend some time in the morning with God, after breakfast if I hadn't awoken early enough, and actually found myself discovering amazing little spaces during the day when I could immerse myself in the Word.  

Due to my current work situation, which was proving increasingly challenging on a daily basis, I found myself starting to pray constantly as I walked around the school, so what had started as some snatched moments after breakfast turned into a day of prayer.  And I thank Beth Harrison with all my heart for making me see that prayer was something that could be a normal part of your daily life, like food, like breathing, like conversation.  

You can pray anywhere, in any situation; either in silence or out loud depending on the circumstances.  After all, if you trust in Jesus in all things it should be the most natural thing to ask His advice or seek His comfort in times of trouble.

Before I started spending time with Beth, I thought of prayer as something that we did in church, in our houses, in the car perhaps, but never in another public place, least of all a car park or a crowded hall of people at an entirely secular event.  Beth prayed with me in all these places and it it totally revolutionised my prayer life and therefore my walk with God as both go hand in hand.  

I started to plan my daily routine so that each important task would have a start and an end time and if I didn't finish I would just have to be disciplined and move onto the next thing.  The other important decision I made was not to use my phone or my computer when I was spending time with my son or in the few minutes immediately after I reached home.  By doing this I reduced the time I spent just around the house, doing this and that under the guise of spending time with Xavier.  He appreciated the time dedicated to him alone and was therefore much more cooperative when I turned my attention to work or prayer at the allotted time.

Co-ordination is certainly key in utilising your time wisely.  

Now I find I have much more time to spend on the things that matter.  I spend time talking to people that I never had time for in the past, I take time to look after myself, even just simple things like using hand cream were too time consuming for me before.  Nowadays I might even take time to relax for a few minutes sometimes and just breathe.  And if I haven't spent enough time on a certain aspect of my life God finds a way to redress the balance, waking me up at 5am if I haven't spent enough time with him or cancelling appointments so that I can spend more time with my son.  

So I was starting to realise that routine was good, but then if something crops up that also seems important, time must be set aside.  Don't be inflexible, perhaps that extra meeting, that snatched time spent with someone new is all part of God's plan, perhaps by spending an hour and a half with someone who asks for your time will mean that you don't waste the next 2 years on something that is taking you away from your right path.  

How many times have you done something on the spur of the moment, met with someone that you wouldn't normally give the time of day to, jumped outside your comfort zone for just one day?

If someone said to you "come with me tomorrow and I promise you that you will receive untold riches", would you go with them?  Would you take the risk?  Get time off work or give up one of your precious holidays to find out what these riches are?  If the answer is "probably not" then you are limiting your life, you are not embracing the endless possibilities that God has put before us.

Many people have given me hours of their time recently to discuss logistics and pray with me for the new community arts project "Inspire" that I will be heading up, and for this I am more than grateful.

Dear Lord,

You are a God of Grace, of promises, of hope, joy, peace and faithfulness whose love endures forever.

You are a God of perfection and yet you respond to our shortcomings with patience, mercy and of course, grace.   

I thank you that your timing is always perfect and that when I fall foul of your pre-ordained path for me and become a victim of the clamour of the world you bring me back into your will if only I listen to your voice.

I thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to guide me in all things and I pray that you will give me the wisdom and discernment to always listen to your voice and follow your guiding light.  

I thank you Lord for surrounding me with a wonderful family through the church who can also help to ensure that I am always God centred in all I do.  I thank you for giving our leaders the wisdom, inspiration and foresight to support such projects as Inspire.  I thank you Lord for the name "Inspire", which could not have a more perfect implication that all we do will be "God breathed". 

Father God, I pray that you will be present in all our preparations and activities for the Inspire project and that we will always look to you for all significant decisions and that our focus and our direction will be entirely Spirit driven.

I thank you Lord for giving me such a time of much needed rest so that I am able to totally immerse myself in your Word and prepare for the many tasks, challenges, decisions and perhaps battles that are ahead of me.  I pray that I will always remember to lean on you my Lord, and that I will not try to accomplish any of this under my own strength but will rely on you in all things.

I ask that you will use me to be a shining light, that I may radiate your glory to everyone, both far and near, and that those closest to me will recognise the change in me brought about through the love of Jesus Christ, my Saviour.

In Jesus' Holy Name I pray,

Amen