bits & pieces of my january quiet times.
February 1st was a weird day for me. I felt like every little thing I learned last month went down the drain. Not sure if you have ever felt that too? Having an entire journal filled with color coded notes from your whole year, and easily forgetting it all so long as you don’t choose to meditate on what you’ve learned from Him most recently. Being away from any community I’ve ever known has forced me to open up my quiet time notebook more often to constantly remind myself of the truths I discovered the morning before, since I don’t run into friends at Pascal’s on a Tuesday afternoon to talk all things Jesus quite as often. If we don’t constantly abide in His Word, it can be so easy to drown in our own thoughts or lies from the enemy. So if we want to live a life that glorifies Him through every ounce of our being, meditation on His truths is a non negotiable.
The enemy loves to make us forget what we should remember, and make us remember what we should forget.
david guzik
A psalm that really stuck out to me the beginning of this year and has shaped the ways I approach my mornings is Psalm 5.
“Oh Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.”
This is a morning prayer from David that lays out how we should approach the Lord in our quiet mornings, and a heart posture I’ve been trying to weave into my conversations with Him.
“I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.” It means believing that He hears the prayers you speak most candidly to Him, and waiting patiently to see Him move in your everyday.
I have found that my days always take a turn once I choose to believe what God is telling me. I can so easily just read a promise of His and think, “wow that’s nice” and move on. It makes me think of those weekend conferences we all attend. You always feel like your cup is overflowing in a room full of like-minded people, but if you don’t allow what you absorbed during that jam packed weekend to sink in, it will all quickly fade into a distant memory. If it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to successfully develop a habit, imagine how many times we need to preach something to ourselves over and over to actually believe it.
Each time I approach an issue I’ve encountered in the past with an already known truth, I laugh thinking about how many times the Lord has had to teach me it. Just like you, I’ve also had handfuls of lessons I’ve had to learn over and over again. Ones I know I will have to continue to relearn. Tis the nature of our walk. I’m learning how to give myself grace as I’m constantly reminded how in need I am of Him.
The beauty that comes with all of this is the presence of such a patient Father. We are ones who are full of forgetfulness and look away from Him so often, yet He still chooses to walk with us. It’s really interesting seeing how many times God repeats His covenant to Abraham and Moses, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring.” (Genesis 22:17) Knowing how easily distracted we become, He still continues to give us grace every time we forget how big He is.
Worship music is always up there on my Spotify wrapped each year. I tend to always be swimming in my thoughts at all times of the day, questioning things and trying to make sense of the world around us. The older I’ve gotten, I’ve found myself just turning on worship songs as my background music to constantly have truths recited at me. I really have found a difference when I do this versus listening to my other music sometimes, as that path normally leads me down the road of discontentment, wanting a life that I don’t live at the time. It’s my subtle way of constantly running to the Father even in the moments where I’m not intentionally abiding. Here are some tunes that have helped quench my anxiety recently:
I’ll Give Thanks – Housefires
So I’ll give thanks to God
When I don’t have enough
‘Cause He’s more than enough
And He knows what I need
In the silence, I choose to believe
You’re working in the waiting
Though the future isn’t clear to me, no
I trust You anyway
Every breath I breathe, oh
Every breath I breathe an invitation
To believe You are creating something good
Palm of your Hand – Harvest
So I will stop and breathe
Rest here in Your goodness
I know You won’t leave
It’s my confidence
Even though I’ve heard it before
You’re taking it, taking it deeper, Lord
Here’s a collection of some promises I’m in the process of preaching to myself on a daily basis:
Psalm 27:1
“The Lord is my light and my salvation,
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?”
Your light has already come. The glory of the Lord has risen upon you. That’s a promise! He is near each and everyday. Believe it!
Psalm 31:1
“In you, do i take refuge…”
To make something your refuge means to put your hope there. To rest. What a beautiful thing to know He is our refuge forever. Even when we feel like we have nothing, we still have Him to rest in.
Psalm 31:24
“Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait on the Lord.”
This one’s been a hard one for me to grasp. To lean into suffering or lack can be painful when you feel like God isn’t there. But how encouraging to know that He is always moving. If we are diligent in waiting on Him, we might just discover more of His beauty.
Psalm 32:10
“…steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.”
God’s steadfast love SURROUNDS you. Believe it! Even on your hardest days this is true. Be glad and shout for joy! And if you can’t, ask the Lord to teach you how to.
Psalm 33:4
“For the Word of the Lord is upright and His work is done in faithfulness.”
Do you trust that He’s placed you where He needs you to be for now? Can you rest in knowing you are in the palm of His hand? How comforting is the reality that if we are in Him, we lack no good thing.
God’s promises are to be our pleas in prayer. For what He has promised, He is ABLE to perform. We must be encouraged to ask Him to. I challenge you to think deeper about the idea of waiting for God. It means attending to His providence, accommodating ourselves to it, and expecting to see how God will use it. Learn to fully embrace whatever God is allowing in your life at the time with expectancy to see Him use it. It feels like being stubborn enough to believe what He says about you is true even through insecurity. It feels like saying yes to a God-sized dream, trusting He has already prepared the way for you. It feels like doing things scared, knowing He’ll catch you when you fall. He has never wasted a trial in my life, whether it be a period of emotional exhaustion, family issues, seasons of discontentment. He uses it all. The good, the bad, everything.
May we start leaving space to breathe God’s love through every crack of our broken stories.
everything in between 