Can You Be Alone With God?

"I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are DEAD. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God." Rev. 3:1a-2

Within the past year the Lord has been teaching me much about myself. Some of these teachings and truths have been both re-affirming and encouraging. However, some have been down right unnerving and difficult to accept and learn concerning myself. I know that all that the Lord is teaching and showing me is good. I know that all these things are aspects of further mercy and grace in my life as well. However, not all that I learn always feels good in the moment (Hebrews 12:11).

I am growing more and more convinced that most of what Christians today (especially in American culture) call healthy in regards to their relationship with Christ is often times surrounded more with misconceptions and deceptions rather than the truth and the power of God's word. Let me use my own life as an example and be brutally honest, even confessional with you all in explaining this issue.

Psalm 46 describes a God who is active, who is in motion, who is in control. Even when so much around us seems to scream out to us, seeks to distract us, and blind us to these truths, God is still at work in and amongst them all. Then in verse 10 something profoundly powerful and clear is written;
"BE STILL and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

I must admit... This "BE STILL" thing is not something that characterizes me often. The honest truth is that, I have often prided myself in being a doer, a goer, a man with a mission, someone who is active in his allegiance to Christ. And in many ways these can be great qualities in a servant of Christ. Truth be told we need more who are willing to risk much and do much for God and His glory today. However, in my case and within the past year the Lord is teaching me something very shocking concerning myself. All this doing, all this going and all this motion has for a large part blinded me from my true spiritual condition.

You see in America I was pastor and on staff at a church. I taught/preached the word at least four times a week. Studied the scriptures constantly in preparation for these moments of teaching/preaching. Counseled with believers constantly on the phone, at my house, or at church itself. Prayed for constant help and guidance from the Lord as to my dealing with them. I was active in sharing the gospel in evangelism and constantly sought to learn God's word in dealing with those who are lost. I attended bible studies, home group meetings and even conferences when the opportunity presented itself. I attended mission trips (leading most of them) Honduras, Kenya and Mexico. Once even taking the gospel to a remote tribe within the jungle who had never heard the message of God's grace in Jesus before. I was a man on mission, a man of action and a man who felt a since of closeness and maturity in my walk with the Lord.

However, eight months ago all this was over in one single move. In coming here (a land not my own) all these things (teaching, preaching, evangelism, bible studies, home fellowships, conferences and even counseling others) have been stripped away from me during this season of my life (still learning the language). In effect the Lord has placed me in a position and place where I have been forced to get still before our God. What I am learning concerning all this brings me much shame, yet joy in knowing that our Father is bringing such knowledge to my soul.

What am I learning? What I am learning is this....... I stink at getting still!.... I am horrible at being alone with God! When all the commotion, when all the activities and all that we call ministry even (and most of these are great things) have for a moment ceased in my life, so has ceased for a great part my communion with our great Lord. I had let all these actions, activities and doings define me as a Christian. I had simply studied, read the word and prayed because I had enough wisdom to know that apart from Christ I could do nothing. I was not studying his word and praying desperately because He simply was enough for me. Not because my soul found rest and joy in Him alone.

George Mueller has once written; "I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished... I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it."

Christian, this is my great fear for many who profess Christ today. I am not making reference to those who do so little, risk so little and have so little concern for God's glory today. My fear in this post is for all you who find yourselves at the church every time the doors are open. Those of you who read constantly books about God. Attend conference after conference. Who pride yourself in your evangelism. Those of you who handle the word in teaching/preaching. Those of you who attend mission trips.............. How well are you at being alone with God? How are you this day spending quality time with the lover of your soul? Are you drinking deeply His word? Are you reading for a chance at seeing your Christ or preparing you for some function? Are you thrusting yourself at His feet in prayer simply to thank Him and worship Him or are you constantly, if you are praying seeking more stuff (whether spiritual or physical) for yourself from Him? Have you in pride (like myself) allowed your actions and doings define you in your walk as a disciple or are you defined as His disciple because you spend much time with your master?

So here I am. The Lord has brought me to this place in my life and is teaching me that in my service (which was really nothing more than subtle pride), I have somehow forgotten my first love. I have been blinded to the fact that I was merely reading scripture (not always, but it was present) to have myself prepared, rather than to meet with my Savior. I was in prayer for greater power in what I was doing, rather than simply speaking to a Father who deserves my undivided attention in conversation and praise.

Before brother Paul Washer left here a few months ago, he gave me advice to calm down, meet with our Lord through the study and reading of His word, pray desperately, learn this language well and love my family and wash them in both the word and prayer as well. I am ashamed to say that it has taken me this long to recognize the importance of such issues until now. I have been running and chasing after so many other (old actions that defined me) issues, that I was forsaking these others.

Will you please, join in with me and ask the Father to renew this weak, dry and broken vessel? Will you join with me and pray that the Lord would do even now a further work of sanctification in my life? My question to you, as I have asked myself is, Can you dear brother and sister be alone with God?

"Remember that it is not hasty reading, but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers honey, but her abiding there for a time on the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest of Christian." Thomas Brooks