Jonathan McReynolds has a beautiful song called “Make Room” that really speaks about making room for God in your life. About preparing your heart for God to dwell there. This is the song that really inspired this post. During my summer travels, as my friend and I drove through the lush greenery that is the state of Tennessee, God dropped this song right into our laps and for 3+ hours from Chattanooga to Memphis this song was on repeat. We worshipped, we meditated on the goodness of God and for me… I felt convicted…  I need to make even more room for God.

I am a LOVER of schedules. I have a planner that each week is updated with my plans and commitments for the week. Colour coded so its easy to see what things are a priority and what things can be shuffled around and done on another day.

It seems that time is something that we never have enough of. Somebody will mention that they need help with something at the church, or your neighbour may need a hand moving and out comes the classic line, “Oh I don’t have any time to do that.”  Yet oddly enough if its something that we feel like doing or are super intrigued by, magically the hours for productivity suddenly appear? Funny how that happens!

Recently, an acquaintance of mine and I were making plans to hit up the gym together, I suggested we meet up in the evening after work and she wanted to meet up in the early morning . While I’m not particularly fond of getting up early, my body wakes me up at 6 am rain or shine, sleet or snow, vacation or work day. So naturally, knowing this , she thought that  going to the gym in the early morning would seem to be of no problem to me right? Wrong. It’s in that early part of the morning that I like to spend my quiet time with God in prayer and bible study as it’s the time of day that I feel that I can give God my  undivided attention and frankly I’m the most alert. When I explained this her she responded,  “Well can’t you just do that later?” Ok I thought, just this once I’ll move things around  and spend time with God later. And you know what happened, Later on came… and so did the sleep….  a day of sweet commune with God missed, never to be regained.

In that moment it dawned me; it shouldn’t be so easy for me to rearrange my schedule when it means bumping God out of the priority spot.  We often rearrange our time with God for something as trivial as a television program.  I can vividly remember in junior high and high school being so mad at my parents for making me go back to church on a Sunday evening when all I wanted to do was stay home and watch the Grammy’s or the BET awards ( remember this was in a time where live streaming and PVR weren’t an option, so if you missed it you missed it!) where as now I could care less!

What if God rearranged His schedule to only be available for us when He felt like it? This society would be even more in shambles than it already is ( hard to imagine!)  We oftentimes take for granted the gift that is Jesus. Someone who is always available morning, noon or night to hear our EVERY need. All He wants from us is for us to make room for Him in our heart and in our lives.

How many times have we prayed this prayer: ” God if you just give me one more day, I promise to  be better to You than  I was today. To give you all of me not just the leftovers?” Then tomorrow comes and again out of mouth comes the exact same words? I don’t know about you, but there are only so many times I can eat leftovers before getting sick of them and before they get stale. In the same way we don’t want to eat leftovers everyday, we need to stop giving God our leftover worship and our reheated praise! Come guys we have to give Him something new to eat once in awhile! There is nothing better than fresh food!

How do you make room for God in your life? Here are 4 ways to make room for God in your everyday life :

Make time for Him:
Make God a priority. The new Netflix series will wait. The phone call will go to voicemail. Give God your undivided attention.

Get rid of and negativity:
Make your heart comfortable for God to enter in. It will be hard for Him to navigate through negative space.  Release and let go of anything that is holding your heart and a prisoner to anger or resentment.

Physically create space for Him:
Find a room or a closet; perhaps your bathroom. Create a space where you will not be surrounded by any distractions, where you can have some personal alone time with God.

Meditate on His word:
Seeking out and studying the word of God is a good way to get to know Him, to learn from Him and to hear from Him.

Where I live, the children are heading back to school today. I am an Educator so this means back to work as regularly scheduled for me as well. ( farewell leisurely summer days 😦 lol )  This is a challenge and reminder to me ( and you) that no matter how hectic life gets, how busy our schedules may seem, make room for God FIRST!

 

 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ( Matthew 6:33)

Have a blessed day!
Til next time…
xoxo

©justlovethemanyway