He Is Waiting...

This morning as I sat down to pray, I was thinking about how wonderful it is that we are all being given an opportunity to learn to experience God's presence on our own.  I love the feeling of God's presence when we gather as a body of believers to worship Him, but the truth is that He is every bit as present here in my living room, as I sit down to converse with Him.  He loves our public gatherings, but He LOVES our private intimate times of one on one conversation.  He is desirous of our listening to Him, of our relationship with Him!

I just did a quick word search and "listen" appears 371 times in the NASB.  Hear and forms of it including hearing, 379 times.  Heard is used 577 times.  Clearly we are encouraged to listen, and to hear!  Prayer, rather than the rote repetition of words, is really all about communication.

In the same way that many of us are now shuttered in with our family members, we are also effectively shuttered in with the Lord.  In the same way that we can work on our interpersonal communications among those we now see all day long, every day, we can work on our "prayer" communications with the Lord!  We can learn to listen, learn to still our minds and become aware of His speaking!  We learn to cultivate a sense of His presence in His written Word as He guides us to what to read and reflect upon.  We can learn to seek Him first, to press into prayer in ways we have never been able to previously!  What a great opportunity!

This morning as I walked into the living room, where I usually pray, I had the distinct impression that He was waiting for me, and glad to see me!  I guess that maybe I should be amazed by this, but the truth is that my meeting with Him in the morning is such a regular occurrence, that it just seems totally normal.  The truth is not that He is waiting in the room, He is actually in me (John 14:20), waiting for me to turn my attention to Him!  Even now, in this new reality, I find that I can easily become distracted and it still requires me to purposefully turn my heart and mind and attention to Him.  I know that because I do so, that He is pleased to meet with me, to give me direction, guidance, correction and attention!  My heart is often moved by His love and mercy!

When I meet with Him, I am so aware of my own weakness and sinfulness and yet, when He meets me, those are not His main concern.  What He IS concerned with is me.  His love is absolutely unconditional!  He loves me for me.  He doesn't require posturing, perfection, or preparation, He just wants my presence!  What an amazing experience of love and acceptance!

My prayer for us all is that we might take this time to learn to be in His presence, on our own!  Jesus used to leave the disciples to go alone to pray to His Father (Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16), and we would do well to learn from His example.  For us to become the true Body of Christ here on earth, we need to be able to represent Him, and to do that we need to know Him and be in relationship with Him and hear Him!

He is waiting for each of us, let us emrbace this time to meet with Him!

Blessings and Peace to You All!

Sam