When we sprinkle our time with just bits of God each day enough to survive, our lives will reflect the little we've sown for it
What will come and become later for our lives will be made up of all that is happening right now.
From the little things to the things we deem bigger in nature, the future is a culmination of each moment now.
That is how we should live, like farmers, constantly sowing now for what can grow later.
We are constantly constructing and building our futures right now.
Yet, how many of us sort of wait until we get to that "hopeful" future until we begin to risk or sacrifice or pour anything of value from ourselves?
Should we wait until things “line up” or make sense before we start taking the small steps we knew all along we should have been taking?
When Jesus told us that He is the vine in which we draw life from, He wasn’t just trying to sound poetic in describing just how dire our need for Him is.
He was literally meaning that apart from Him, there can be no true life.
We cannot find the person we are meant to become apart from Him . . . and it will always feel as though something is missing when we do.
No wonder we grab for so many other things when really all we were actually needing was Him.
It is meant to be this way, us missing something without Him because we were created for Him . . . not all the other things we reach for . . . So it only makes sense to do what we were originally created for.
So it is no wonder we often live life lacking until finding true fulfillment in who we are meant to be in Him.
Apart from our fellowship and communion with Him . . . without undistracted time spent with Him and a bond of intimacy grown with Him, we will always be less than what we are meant to.
It is truly that simple.
Yet, it is in our human nature to only do what we think we can get away with.
That kind of thinking allows us to survive through each day, but never thrive.
We may be able to survive and make it through each day with only bits and pieces of giving Him our distracted attention, but that will only yield the lesser harvest.
When we sprinkle our time with just bits of God each day enough to survive, our lives will reflect the little we've sown for it.
I can say with confidence that when I have been neglecting that quality time spent with God, undivided and one-on-one, I am less of the man I know I can be.
Sadly, knowing that isn’t enough sometimes when I do indeed neglect connecting to that Mighty Vine.
But, when I have become so dry and dead inside, lacking passion and all the life I find in Him . . . when I get to the end of myself, I find that He is waiting there for me.
How amazing is that?
Now, I am not talking about listening to a worship song in the morning and/or a sermon and calling it good. Those are outside sources . . . "tools" of cultivating our growth and relationship with Him . . . but just like in school, if all you ever do is read text books, you will only be one-sided in your knowledge.
It is the actual time spent with Him and also learning your own heart and who you are through communicating with Him that makes all the difference.
I am talking about silence.
I am talking about just you and Him, nothing else.
Just your heart being open and real about what is going on in your life, frustrations, confusions, desires met or unmet, and all that seems to come up to the surface for air when we get alone and in a quiet undistracted place with Him.
This is what brings us life . . . that undistracted quality time with Him.
This should be the first step to sowing into your future, for it is the greatest and most important step you could take. That time spent with God is where we find the person we are meant to be and who we are meant to become.
I was spending some time with Him one day years ago and I was a little frustrated at something. I think I had been asking Him to move in a certain area and didn’t see much happening.
So naturally I was frustrated and told Him something that sounded a bit like,
“I don’t get it God . . . you want me to spend all this time with you but nothing is happening on the outside. I feel like I am not getting anywhere in life, yet You still want me here with You. What am I really accomplishing?”
Just then as I had my eyes closed, He gave me a moving picture in my mind.
It was of me alone with Him, sitting there talking to each other and spending time together.
Then I saw this huge crane come and pick me up and it took me to this rather large crowd of people. It set me down right in the center of the crowd.
Then He told me,
“Spending time with me will always be the greatest investment to whatever your future will end up looking like.”
All at once in that moment I knew what He was saying to me just with that simple picture and those simple words.
It hit me that I was looking at my life through human eyes . . . through the world’s eyes . . . but He was seeing things as they truly were far beyond any limitations from earthly or fleshly means.
He knew that, although it seemed backwards to me, spending time with Him was going to place me in the opportunities that I so longed for to happen.
It was going to give me favor among men more successfully than if I went around trying to earn their favor through networking or any other earthly means to find it.
He would take care of me if only I spent that time with Him and learning from Him and talking with Him.
Even now there are parts of me that don’t like this. There are parts of me shouting in disagreement that this is in fact not true . . . and I should go and make it happen and toil for my ambitions.
But because God has shown me truths like I had just shared above, I know that there is no quicker or better or more successful way to invest your time that to first spend it with Him.
Again, I am talking about getting alone somewhere quiet and without distractions. I am talking about no phone, no to-do list, and no people.
Even if it is just 10 minutes . . . it will be the greatest investment you could ever make today and tomorrow and for the rest of your life.
In this case, it is quality over quantity. We must not allow the thoughts that fight against this to keep us from spending that time with Him.
Thoughts like,
“I have too much to do so I can’t just set my phone down and go somewhere to be alone with Him.”
That’s B.S. and we all know it.
So don’t even give those thoughts the time of day.
We live by faith and not by what we see and faith without action is worthless.
So we say,
“Okay God, I am going to give you this time undistracted. It may not be much but I trust You to make it bigger than what it looks like to me.”
And that’s it.
Our part is just connecting to Him like a branch is connected to its vine.
His part is the supernatural part that doesn’t make sense to us.
I am going to talk a little about what spending time with Him has looked like for me in next week’s article and hopefully that may help some with fears that may hold them back from something that seems a little daunting like being alone with yourself as well as being alone with your creator.
For now though, let’s destroy the excuses and reasons that hold us back and set some time aside today to spend with Him undistracted, even if it is a small amount . . . He will meet you there, He really will.
Let’s pray together . . .
Father, replace the fear and doubt with hope that when we invest in spending time with You, we are doing so much more than we could when we don’t. We admit that we need You and need to be connected to Your heart because our lives depend on it. Grow us into the men You desire us to be, in Jesus’ name.
(Photo: hiking around some glaciers when I was in Iceland earlier this year)
