One of the things we have been challenged to do while on the race is to figure out how we best connect with God. Although I want to connect with God in every way I can, it is true that God has made people to connect with Him more naturally in certain ways. I have learned that the way I most naturally connect with God is “experientially” – I like to sit with Him and just enjoy His presence. Even this looks differently to people who were made that way, and may look different during different seasons of life. But I have been loving the place that God has me right now.
My absolute favorite thing to do is to read in bed until something motivates me to pray. Then I put the book down and pray until I’m done and pick the book back up. Throughout this sequence I sometimes fall in and out of sleep, and the best part of the whole thing is the time I get to pray in half-consciousness. All of my inhibitions and my logic fall away and in my almost dream-like state He begins to motivate me to pray for things that I wouldn’t think of myself and might have a hard time believing Him for if I was really thinking about it. I forget to ask “why?” and “what if?” and “how will that work?” and just pray the things that the Spirit moves me to. Sometimes when I pray like this I am moved to intercession and then to war in prayer over things, but most of the time I am just aware of Him. I am aware that He is holding me, that I am sitting in His lap or at His feet, and that He adores me. I just get to sit there in mutual love with the Father, being adored and adoring Him.
As God shows me how my intelligence and my head and my “what ifs” get in the way, He has been showing me how important this time is. It is always a time that I come away feeling peaceful and at rest, and it is sometimes a time when I come away with deep revelation of what He is doing in mine or others’ lives.
While I was organizing a children’s library this past month I stumbled upon a book that I used to love growing up called, Love You Forever. In the book the child makes a lot of messes and screws things up a lot, but at night when he is still the mother sneaks in his room and picks him up singing to him that she will “love him forever and like him for always”. God has been showing me that He views me as a child just learning to walk, stumbling and unsteady and always making mistakes, but none of which He is upset with me about. He is just so delighted that I am learning to walk and moving forward, developing exactly the way He was expecting me to and even failing in ways He knew I would. He is with me as I stumble throughout the day, but it is the delight of His heart when I take time to lay still and just rest in Him.
Take some time to sit still and know that He is God today. Ask Him to wrap His arms around you and show you that He is there…I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
