Minutes

I hear reminders from the Holy Spirit almost constantly now when I become discouraged or feel myself slipping into any kind of despair or survival mode, that God's mercy and His work in me to bring healing is available to me at any instant. A day is as a thousand years to Him. So I might be in the middle of a busy moment at home, around town or with people, and God wants to speak. He can make an exchange with me instantaneously if I will pour out my heart like water, and take the childlike position that He is a willing friend tangibly with me, ready to hear me out and move on my need. This is where I could lose my footing--if I forget how near He always is in me, around me and through me. We desire more because we can have more. We were made for more. To kill the desires we feel for relationship, intimacy, wholeness and passion for life throughout any one of our days is to push God away. He gave us those desires so that we can become full of Him. He does not demand that we exist disappointed. I realize this can be a painful statement, but we can rise up. We can because He is with us. The difference is expectation.

"For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night." Psalm 90:4

I want my moments to matter. I don't want my 5 minutes to be wasted because I was waiting for an unbroken hour to give God. Yah it's lovely when we do have those longer times, but life is life, God is God. He knows we have to do stuff. We have a partnership with Him in everything. The mystery and secret for us is that everything can change in one moment fully yielded to God.

Turn to God. "God I have a few minutes, and I am so discouraged. What do you want to do with me?" Then expect, expect, expect to maybe see a picture, hear a truth, feel comfort and hope. The more practiced we are the easier recognizing God gets. I love what Graham Cooke says, "It's like driving a car. It's not hard. It just takes practice and then soon it's automatic!" We are touched by God and before we even notice, "our minutes" have become a whole day of communion. Life does not stop to make room for God. God is life.

"We may plead for mercy for a lifetime in unbelief, and at the end of our days be still no more than sadly hopeful that we shall somewhere, sometime, receive it. This is to starve to death just outside the banquet hall in which we have been warmly invited. Or we may, if we will, lay hold of the mercy of God by faith, enter the hall, and sit down with the bold and avid souls who will not allow diffidence and unbelief to keep them from the feast of fat things prepared for them."
--A.W. Tozer

"Whom have I in heaven but You? And I have no delight or desire on earth besides You....it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God and made Him my refuge.."
Psalm 73: 25, 28a