Our Best Hours

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Colossians 3:2

God has entrusted us with the precious gift of time.  Twenty-four hours in every day; seven days in a week; every day significant, every hour important, every moment of value to God.  Yet how many of those moments are truly being used for His glory?  If we are honest, many of us would have to admit that though we profess Jesus Christ to be our highest priority, our lives proclaim something quite different.  

A Christian young woman recently confessed to me, “I spend more time on Facebook than I do in prayer or studying the Word of God.”  

That’s the sad reality most of us (including myself!) are living in. 

It’s easy to think of our time, especially our free time, as belonging to us; that it’s our right to do whatever we feel like doing in those “down” moments of the day.  But when we come to Christ, we are to lay everything at His feet - including our time.  As Leonard Ravenhill said, “What does it mean to be a Christian?  Your life is hid with Christ.  You have no time of your own, no money of your own; Christ must become your complete Master.”

God has continued to challenge me with this statement - down to the very details of how I spend each moment of the day.  And I have discovered that when we lay everything at the feet of Jesus and find our deepest fulfillment, rest, peace, strength, and joy in His presence alone – not dulling our spiritual lives with worldly counterfeits – we are beckoned into the supernatural, superhuman existence in which God designed us to live.  That’s when the presence of God draws near.  That’s when our prayers are heard and answered.  That’s when the life we read about in Scripture actually becomes our reality.

Most of us constantly battle with the fact that God is distant, intimacy with Christ is difficult to obtain, and our prayers don’t seem to be heard.  But God says, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13).

We aren’t finding Him because we aren’t searching for Him with all our hearts.  We are too preoccupied with checking our Facebook, watching reality shows, downloading the latest songs on iTunes, and obsessing over Hollywood’s newest production to let our entire beings be poured forth in constant and unreserved devotion in the service of the Lord who died to save us.

Most of us feel that we don’t have enough time for prayer and seeking God.  But we don’t even consider giving up our nightly TV time, our weekend movie fests, or our iTunes fetish in exchange for spending time in His presence.

Whether we spend our best hours socializing on Facebook, texting about trivialities, rushing to the latest Twilight movie, or vegging in front of the newest reality TV show - the majority of our time is being given to things that are not of eternal value; and often, things that are just distracting. Most of us are far more influenced by pop culture than we are by the Word of God.  We can quote our favorite lines from 100 different chick flicks, but the only Scripture we know is John 3:16. 

It’s no wonder that Christ feels distant.

Only when we are willing to give Him the best hours of our day - rather than whatever is left after we’ve wasted most of our time on selfish pleasure - will we truly experience vibrant intimacy with our Heavenly King. 

Her Essence is Confident

After talking to some amazing young women in Christ I realized a few things. One, that even though these young women love Christ more than their own life they still struggle with confidence in Christ. Secondly, that confidence can be almost looked on as a negative quality in a young women. Lastly, I wanted to reassure and encourage some of these young women of their value and confidence in the Lord.

God calls us to a life of faith--- faith that He is God and we are not, and that he offers all we need to be complete and satisfied. It is this confidence that creates a mystery about you that others will notice. However I believe there a difference between self-confidence and God- confidence. Self-confidence scares others off. Before God called me to abide in Him I held all of my confidence upon myself and was overly assertive in my interactions and conversations. But once I made the gradual change from focusing on confidence in myself to focusing on confidence in who God is, I became more comfortable with who I was, more comfortable to be around. I needed to be seen and heard only by my God and not by those around me.

You were made for a very great purpose: to love and serve the Lord of lords. Confidence is being convinced that "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength." (Mark 12:30). You must know that the Creator didn't make a mistake when he made you. You may have moments when you think he did things wrong when he got to you, but God never messes up. Everything about you is made divinely in His image. The cut of your nose, the family you were born into, and the longings and hopes and dreams in your heart were all initiated by God himself, and all it takes to make the world see the beauty in you is trust-- not in yourself but in the God who created you. We all have weaknesses and areas in our lives where we are lacking, but God helps us work with those things, bringing them into line with his Word. He promises to burn off the impurities and leave only the finest gold in their place.

All of us as women have something we could choose to be unhappy about when it comes to our bodies, personalities, and life circumstances. But the secret is acceptance of things we can't change which manifests itself in contentment. Contentment is simply a steady knowledge that God is ultimately in control of everything that has been given to us. "Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession" (James 1:17-18). And because you are his prized possession---his love and creation---he knows what is best for you. Acceptance understands this and takes everything that comes as a gift and not a trail. It is this confidence that changes everything about you and your essence within Christ.