Who Has The Time?

       Do you ever feel like Heaven is shut up, the Lord doesn't care what happens to you, or He doesn't love you? I think this thought has at least crossed most of our minds at one time. I recently had a rough couple of days, and at night I would pray and tell God my heart was breaking and tell Him exactly what was going on. I kept feeling like my prayers just weren't going through. Then the next night as I was laying there once again talking to God, the Lord impressed on me, "You want Me to help you but you have left no room in your life for Me. How can I speak to you, or help you if there is no place for Me to fit?" Then I began thinking other than my morning devotions and at meal times, there was no place else for Him. My life was so filled with fleshly things such as Pinterest, Makeup how tos, and anything else but there was no room for the Lord. The activities in and of themselves were not wrong, but they became wrong when it replaced and kicked out anything to do with the Lord. Most of them were purely fleshly, and nothing for the Lord throughout the day. The normal person lives on 3 meals a day, how is the spiritual man inside supposed to live on 1 meal? No wonder I felt lopsided inside, it definitely was not God that moved but me! When I became hurt or offended my emotions ruled everything else, instead of taking it in stride as a spiritual person and realizing this is part of life on earth with people. I didn't have enough of the Lord's presence in my life to help me, control me, or to help me to grasp anything positive out of the situation.
       My parents always taught us growing up that it was not their job to find us and get our attention, but it was OUR job to be so in tune with them that when they called from anywhere in the house and we could hear them and answer. That lesson was taught so that later on in life when God called which is sometimes in 'that still small voice' we would hear Him and answer His call no matter how 'loud' that call was.
       I had allowed so many things to creep in and substituted fleshly things for spiritual things. That's why Ephesians 5:19 is so important. "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Throughout the day we need to find things that will edify ourselves in the Lord reading our Bible, memorizing scripture, listening/playing good Christian songs, spending time with those who will encourage us in the Lord, praying....and many more. It doesn't mean that everyday every hour you have to be doing one of these, but the spiritual things should out weigh the fleshly things.
     Our spiritual life does not begin and end when we do our devotions in the morning (or at night) it continues during the day. Every choice we make during the day affects our spiritual life either positively or negatively. I'm mostly referring to activities not work or school;) If we were to write down what we did yesterday, and categorize them into spiritual and physical and how long we did each, which one would win? It's sad to say I think with most of us it would be the physical/fleshly side. For an example: My Pinterest isn't bad, I don't have friends who show naked pictures, or curse words, or talk about bands and such; I try to keep my Pinterest very clean. Pinterest becomes bad when I began to spend hours on it; or if it outweighs the spiritual that I have done that day. Doing something fleshly only makes you want to continue and before you know it, it's been hours.

         

      I don't think many Christians realize just how much danger lies in our time during the day! Time is valuable and what you do with it decides how big your spiritual life is, and just how close you are to God. When you spend a lot of time doing things that edify the fleshly side of you, that is just what you are. It dulls the Holy Spirits control in your life, and soon you are so far away from the Lord you don't even notice how far you have drifted from Him. I have had to do some clean up in my own life recently, I truly want to be close to the Lord and for Him to look down and be pleased with what He sees! I hope this makes everyone at least take a look at your own life and evaluate where all of your time is going, is it to things on the internet, worldly things; or is your time a treasure because it is drawing you close to the Lord? Look at your life and make sure the time invested in spiritual things far out weighs the other!

James 4:8 "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw night to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded."