Monday June 11,, 2018

 

Your life is the sum total of your decisions. Your decisions are like roads, they have a beginning and an end; they start somewhere and they end somewhere else. Therefore, your future will be determined by the decisions you make today. Imagine starting your own business and being able to get the advice you need from the top business people in the world. Imagine if you had a health problem and you could consult the most knowledgeable doctors of all times. Now, imagine having the best and the brightest person available to consult with in any area of your life; how many bad decisions would you make? This is precisely what  God offers you, an invitation to consult him and to bring into your decision-making, his eternal wisdom. God knows the end result of every one of your decisions. He knows what decisions are bad for you, what decisions are good for you, and what decisions are best for you.

 

From the moment we wake, until the time we go back to sleep, our lives will be confronted with all kinds of decisions. Some are simple and routine, while others are complicated and unexpected. Some are of less significance, and others urgent and important. All of our decisions whether big or small will impact our future for better or for worse. No one could have understood this dynamic more than Jesus. Imagine the importance and the significance of his decisions. His mission was to rescue all of humanity past, present, and future in only three years. He literally carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Yet, he never underestimated spending time alone to speak to and listen to God.

 

 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.  But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.– Luke 5:15-16 NIV

 

Three Lessons

 

1- Priority

 

If you want to hear God’s voice, you must prioritize time alone with him. Life will get busy, there will be opportunities and there will be emergencies, but nothing in your life should be more important than spending time alone with God. No matter how busy things were for Jesus, he prioritized withdrawing to lonely places to spend time with God.

 

2- Persistence

Jesus was persistent. Spending time alone with God was not something he did once in a while, it was something he did often. As you read the Gospels, you will discover that Jesus withdrew to lonely places when things were tough and when things were going well.

 

3- Withdraw

 

Dedication requires separation. Hearing God speak to you will require you to temporarily divorce your ears and attention from everyone else. God’s favorite time and place to speak to us is the time and place in which we can give him our undivided attention. Yes, Jesus often withdrew to lonely places.