The Shepherd’s Staff September 2009

AA“Daddy, slow down!” I thought I would never hear those words out of my daughter’s mouth. I always thought she enjoyed my fast driving as we whipped around corners and curves. Yes, I admit, I don’t go fast pushing her tricycle down the sidewalk, I drive fast (that’s what pastors do, right?) Thinking back, I must have been driving with Eliana in the back seat and took a corner to sharp or braked a little too hard — enough to get beyond the laughter and giggles to a little more on the scary side of life.

AANormally, I don’t like it when someone tells me to slow down, but I need to hear it, especially in my journey with God. I have a tendency of going so fast with work, with my family, with my personal activities that schedules get full, time runs out and who receives the leftovers – God. My conversation with God suffers, my realization of God suffers, my decision-making suffers. Without God’s presence, my life becomes one frantic mess of gotta, gotta, gotta go, and there’s no time for God…because I’m too busy to slow down and be with God. I’m too busy to pray.

AAJohn Ortberg writes from Simplified: Exploring the Spiritual Disciplines:

“Prayer, perhaps more than any other activity, is the concrete expression of the fact that we are invited into a relationship with God. Prayer is ‘talking with God about what we are doing together,’ as Dallas Willard puts it. In addition to all the other work that gets done through prayer, perhaps the greatest work of all is the knitting of the human heart together with the heart of God.”

AAWhen we participate in the discipline of prayer, our prayer becomes deeper and goes beyond just talking to God so that it also includes our response to Him talking to us. We can’t afford NOT to pray. We can’t afford NOT to have the privilege of being alone with our heavenly Father – life’s too short to be too busy for God.

AABeginning September 13th, we will begin our series on prayer during our Sunday morning worship. Bring a Bible. Bring a friend! My prayer is that we will all learn to SLOW DOWN, be with God, and do what Jesus did – go to our own mountainside to pray and be with the Father. To do otherwise is dangerous and hazardous to your health!

Timothy

timothy@messiahwilmington.org

Note: This is a new email address!

Pastor Timothy Steele