Enjoying The Presence Of God
Recently I had been reading a book for class that was about spending time with God. The book was entitled, Enjoying The Presence of God. The author of the book, Jan Johnson, had been doing a strict devotional routine in her time for God. Everything was laid out in a certain way in her binder and she made sure that she went through each and every section she had tabbed. She would finish all the sections and be done. She realised that though she had this routine down, she was not growing in her walk with God. She began to look at being in the presence of God from a different perspective. Instead of having this strict routine to do at a certain time, she began to incorporate spending time in God’s presence even during the busiest times of the day. She began to look at The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence would enjoy the presence of God even while cooking in the kitchen. Jan Johnson began to start praying to God and praising him during the busy times and the fun, enjoyable times. She began doing breath prayers. For instance, she suggested that if there is a situation that is out of your hands, but you want a certain outcome, to just say under your breath, “Into Thy hands.” She also suggested to focus on what’s in front of you. What she means by this is even when you’re walking down the street and you see a homeless person that you just pray for the person at that moment. By changing the way she thought about being in the presence of God, she began to grow closer and closer to Him. It’s not easy, because the devil doesn’t want us to grow closer in our walk with God. He will throw obstacles in our way, but that is when you salute and go on. My encouragement to all of you who are reading this blog entry is to not let your time with God to become a legalistic routine. Try different ways to be in His presence. Try singing and dancing alone in His presence sometime. Try even just resting in Him. Also I encourage you to try praying about different things through out the day. By this I mean praying even when in a van full of crazy kids or any other noisy situation. I have tried it and it makes a big difference in the attitude you have during those crazy times.
God Bless,
Josh Gamble
