Monday, February 7, 2011

Week 1 Review

Week 1 Review:

A week ago, I had a long night with God, the kind of night where I can’t sleep and God won’t leave me alone. Those hours of praying and trying to doze led to a vision of the person that God could transform me into. I committed to the experiment of spending five minutes out of each hour asking God how I could serve him in the next hour. I expected to spend a couple minutes of prayer opening myself to God and his love. The next two minutes were supposed to be dedicated to listening to God during the final minute I was supposed to open my eyes and find some concrete way to serve God in the next hour.

Week 1 results:

Sometimes I opened my eyes and had very concrete tasks before me. The most obvious example was when I opened my eyes and saw two new toilet brushes on the toilet. It took a couple minutes of arguing with God to realize that his plans were different from the plans I’d started the day with. I’d planned to spend the day or a good portion of it writing and getting the 1st post set up. God wanted me to spend the day getting the house clean and prepared for the company we were having that night.

When I obeyed God and started serving him the way he asked me to he blessed my with special time with my wife, my children and our guests.

Sometimes I would do my prayer routine in the midst of other activities, like writing, taking care or children or doing household chores. At times I felt his blessing and encouragement to continue in what I was doing. Yet, later I would realize that praying in the midst of doing other things, no matter how practically essential, does not take the place of deliberately setting aside time to open myself and submit to his desire for my service. Maybe there are two kinds of prayer involved in this process, the continuous prayer of inviting God into every aspect of our daily lives and the solemn prayer of setting aside time just for communing with God. It’s probably not practical to do solemn pray each hour, but is quite possible five five-minute periods each day.

Sometimes there were hours when I was either “too tired” or “too distracted” to pay attention to how God wanted me to serve him. Are such periods normal and expected for all people, Christian or not? The alternative theory is that these are the times when we are nibbling ourselves away from God. I’m still wondering how a Christian takes his or her rest in God.

Sometimes there were periods of crisis when I felt helpless and feared losing everything. In these time I prayed to God, confessing my fears and pains. The biggest comfort I got was that the ability to pray is proof that I am not completely helpless.

General Results

My relationships with my wife and children are better.
My house is cleaner, not just from a one time cleaning binge but rather from a more determined daily effort to keep it clean.

I’m devoting more time to intercessory prayer.

The Doctor told me that I could drive in the daytime.

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