15
“Mom-is fifteen minutes a long time?”
“Well, it depends…” I said, “to hold your breath--yes! To make dinner--no!”
But what about a bigger question…
If your life could be transformed for the better by meeting for fifteen minutes each day with the world’s greatest, most powerful, loving, kind, generous, wise, creative genius who ever lived--would you do it? I would hope so!
And yet...
so often we go to Church each Sunday treating it like a drive-through. As speedily as possible we check off the box, hoping our brief encounter with God will fix all of our problems, and then zoom off to the next thing doing very little during the week to fan the flame of relationship with that same God. If we only ate once a week, we would starve to death, and yet this is our cultural norm for “spiritual nourishment.”
I pray that you will take the 15 minute challenge posed to us by a wise priest this past Sunday. Please join me in committing to DAILY spending 15 minutes with God EVERY MORNING (and for those so inclined--EVERY NIGHT as well).
Simply come to Him and ask Him to meet you face to face. Bring Him your whole self-your good self and your worst self. Bring Him your joys and your sorrows. Open up your heart and your day-timer and say:
“Here I am. Here is my day. I give each moment to You. Go before me in this meeting. Give me wisdom in how to deal with my children. Give me strength to deal with this very challenging person or situation. Give me all that I need because I want to be able to live this life in Your strength. Help me to deal with this temptation that trips me up again and again. Help me to turn the other cheek, (and eye) if I need to. Help me to remain positive, courageous and to persevere, even when I feel like giving up or giving in. Help me to be grateful and thankful. Give me a happy heart that longs to please You. Here I am-- all of me--work with me, because without You living in and through me- I can do no better. Thank You. Amen.” And when possible, read His word and ask Him to speak to you through it.
Then at night-simply walk through your day and thank Him for the way He came through for you and answered your prayers and say sorry for where you got in the way of His grace. That’s it.
And see if this 15 minutes does not make the rest of the twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes of your day, a whole lot better.
Peter Kreeft has this to say about Time:
“When a little boy offered Christ five loaves and two fishes, he multiplied them miraculously. He does the same with our time, but only if we offer it to him in prayer. This is literally miraculous, yet I know it happens from repeated experience. Every day that I say I am too busy to pray, I seem to have no time, accomplish little, and feel frazzled and enslaved by time. Every day that I say I'm too busy not to pray, every time I offer some time-loaves and life-fishes to Christ, he miraculously multiplies them and I share his conquest of time. I have no idea how he does it, I know that he does it, time after time.
And yet I resist sacrificing my loaves and fishes to him. I am an idiot. That's one of the things original sin means: spiritual insanity, preferring misery to joy, little bits of hell to little bits of heaven.
We must restore our spiritual sanity. One giant step in that direction is to think truly about time.”
Give God your 15--and see what He will do with all the rest.
“Rely on the mighty LORD; constantly seek his face.” 1 Chronicles 16:11
Dear Lord,
Help me to begin this discipline in my life today, and by Your grace, help me to do this every day. I want to be transformed.
I ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And thank you blog readers for your love and support over the past several years. I am going to take a “summer sabbatical” to give myself the time I need to work on a very big project. I hope to be back in September. In the meanwhile-it’s RE-RUN time! Peruse any of the 250+ previous blog postings and give God your 15 minutes each day. God bless you and please pray for me! And I will pray for you!
pax, melissa
