Why I didn't blog on Monday

I love my YouVersion Bible App! It's like that little angel that sits on your shoulder telling you what you should and shouldn't do - in an app! I get to pick a reading plan that's good for me, check off when I'm done - and get reminders when I fall behind!

And that's why I didn't blog on Monday, as I normally do.  I've been very behind on my reading. I'm not talking about just reading to check off a list - but real, sit down, one on one with God, quiet time kinda reading.  You wanna know what the worst part is? The distractions are not big outside issues, they are more 'busybody' type distractions. I think this goes back to the Mary vs Martha discussion.

I just picked up a book a few weeks ago called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.  It's a great read so far - (Yes, i'm behind on that as well!). It talks about the misconception many people have with running around and doing services here and there, and also talks about the other side where God doesn't want someone just sitting in their room their whole life praying about things and changes, when we could be the ones doing it!

One of the best things I've heard a great man say before was, "Don't let prayer be a scapegoat". At first, I said to myself "Heathen!!" - then I came to my senses and realized there is much more behind this phrase. We can sit and pray and read and pray and read and fast about things and look for answers, when God is telling us to get up and do it! Bishop Paul of Mission Affairs in Africa said this to a few people - when they were inquiring about going to Africa.  They had the time off, the money, the group, everything - but they said "Lets pray about it". Now don't get me wrong, I'm NOT saying that is wrong - but when that is given as an answer too much, it may appear to be a 'scapegoat' from doing what God is asking us to do, no?

On the other side, serving too much without down-time is not beneficial either. We can be blinded by the fact we are doing so much that we may think we're okay. When all we are doing is forgetting about the inside of the cup.

Balance is very imporant, which is one of the key principles this book talks about.  It was said of St Gregory of Nazianzus that "His ideal of Christian perfection was a balance between action and contemplation. He sought to embody this ideal by alternating between periods of active ministry and solitary, prayerful, scholarly contemplation."

I need to focus on not overloading one side of the scale - do you feel this way as well? Is there one side of the scale that is taking over?

Quiet Time...

I know its been a long time since I have written, I apologize. There is just so much I have to say that I didn't know where to begin!

This summer I had the greatest opportunity to travel to Kenya and serve there with H.G. Bishop Paul. Going there, I thought something completely different than I had actually experienced.

Let me just jump right into it. They had a daily schedule for us to follow at the monastery, which I'll try to summarize. Wake up at 7. 7-8:30 quiet time, 8:30-10 praise and worship/bible study, 10-11 breakfast, 11-6 SERVICE, 6-7:30 quiet time. 8-9:30 praise and worship/bible study, 9:30 dinner, 10 praise and worship/tasbeha/sleep.

If you could tell, there were 3 hours of quiet time per day in the schedule. At first I thought it was a joke. How could I read the bible and sit in quiet and meditate on a couple of verses for so long!

I never absorbed the term 'quiet time' before. I mean I would do my daily readings (or try at least), put my bible away, and call it a day. After a week or so following the schedule and being woken up everyday to sit in like 2 hours of quiet, was kind of exhausting (physically and spiritually). I thought to myself, "Why am I waking up early, to sit in quiet?"

I tried to follow as diligently as I could, skipping a day here and there, thinking I was just doing an assignment. After about 10 days, I thought again, "Why am I just reading this and not even benefiting?" From hearing Bishop Paul and others about reflections on quiet time, I began to take it a little more seriously. Bishop Paul would say "How can you go out and serve and give during the day, without being filled first?" Also, they would emphasize that the point of quiet time is to hear God's personal message for you. I never knew what this meant until the day after I decided to take quiet time seriously. Even though mostly all of us were following the same St Mark's DC quiet time schedule, I felt the message and reading was directly to me, solely and nobody else. After this had happened, I was never as excited to read the Bible as I was now. I would have never thought when I woke up that I would be anxious to read the Bible, it was a crazy thought!

God bless the people that have been doing this out of their heart, but unfortunately I needed it to hit me directly for me to start taking it seriously. So in quiet time, sit in quiet for a little before reading. It cleared my mind of anything and everything, ready to absorb the Word of God and hear not only with my ears or eyes but with my heart. The quiet time that changed my life was from Revelations chapter 3 about the Lukewarm church. Knowing myself, I learned a lot about myself (well actually that its not knowing myself at all). And if God was able to speak to me and I was able to hear it, and accept it, and yearn to listen to His voice everyday, than anybody can do it...

"Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, for of from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp." Exodus 33:7-8

Even Moses did quiet time!! He set his tent OUTSIDE THE CAMP, away from all distractions, so he was able to hear the Word of God. Let us go outside our camp, away from our comfort zone, and close the door of our room, and open the door of our hearts..