Take My Minutes, Lord

I’ve always stiffened when I hear talk of having a “quiet time,” with the Lord and how it’s the most important part of our day.  Most often when I’ve heard it mentioned, it’s emphasized that we can’t function without that hour in the morning before our day begins.

It’s not because I don’t think it’s important to be alone with the Lord in His word and prayer…I do and I want it.  It’s just that to think that having a one hour shot of Jesus in the morning is enough for us to walk through our day in victory leaves me feeling desperate. I need more than one hour of Jesus in my day.  I need Him every minute of my day.

As a mom of young children and being pregnant, my early mornings have temporarily ceased.  Before pregnancy, I was up very early, had time alone with the Lord and managed to get in a good workout each morning before the kids awoke.  My kids are old enough to where I was able to have a full nights’ sleep, wake plenty before them, and didn’t feel the need to nap.

Now, I am more exhausted than I’ve been since just after Brant’s birth.  I go to bed after Blane and I spend an hour or so together after the kids go to bed, usually around 9/9:15.  I wake up when Blane does, make him breakfast and lunch, and send him out the door.  Around this time, the kids are waking. And a nap is a must right now.  What time does that leave me to soak in His presence?

I don’t get an hour alone with the Lord right now.  My body is physically unable to maintain the same lifestyle that I can when I am not carrying a life in me.  I have been in a puddle of tears on more than a few occassions, feeling like I’m hanging on by a thread.

Enter John 15, particularly verse 5, and the continual theme of my life right now in learning what it means to truly abide in Jesus.

I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

The Lord is intent on helping me get this by putting me into a place where I have no other option but to press in, with the minutes I have throughout my day.

It’s no secret that Sara is a good friend, from whom I’ve learned so much.  We often have similar themes the Lord is weaving in our lives at the same time, but she is definitely several steps ahead of me in this journey, with much wisdom to offer.  We’d been talking over a few weeks on this theme in John 15 and how the Lord had been teaching us more what this looks like.  Then, she sent me a talk from a Bible study she’s a part of, speaking to this very verse, at which I laughed and cried while listening.

Dana Candler speaks to moms on what it looks like to abide in Jesus in the midst of the rigorous demands of motherhood.  Her message was helpful mostly in reminding me that the minutes of my day are precious opportunities to cry out to the Lord, to memorize His Word, to pray through His word.  None of it, even two minutes, is wasteful.  Not only that, but it is truly precious to Jesus.

Every minute adoring, praying His Word, memorizing His word is sowing.  Being in this season again of surviving and not having long periods of time to soak in my own prayer room, I’ve needed to be reminded that the truth of the matter is that my minute by minute abiding is essential to not only my survival, but to a thriving life in Jesus.

It’s wonderful and I can’t wait to have more time alone with Him for extended periods (like what my husband has given me this morning…so refreshing!), but I’ve seen my need to learn in a much deeper way what abiding looks like.  Clinging, desperately hanging on to Jesus, with cries throughout my day that are not in vain, but actually move His heart.

So, moms, as I share with you what my struggles have been and how the Lord has been encouraging me to cling to Him and to be encouraged by His work through the minutes I have to offer Him, be encouraged.  You are walking in the steps of Your Lord, laying down your life for your children that they may have true Life in Jesus.