I have been finding myself feeling lonely and sad lately. I have been feeling like someone or something has been missing. I’m looking around and my family is there and friends are there. So, I’m asking myself, “What is your problem?” “Why are you so sad?” “Why are you feeling lonely?” Then it dawned on me…I was sad because I was missing God

I pray every day, but the chaos, busyness, stress of life has been distracting me from spending true time with God. My prayer time was quick prayers as I am driving Christopher to work. Or when Joe was leaving for a meeting about getting a contract to get his business going. I would pray real quickly that God would find favor. Silence and solitude was missing from my prayer time. I wasn’t being still in His presence. I was finding every excuse not to be still with God: I have a lot of work to do, I slept too late, I have to take Christopher to work or a day of errands. I even was allowing the distractions of social media or television get in the way of spending quality time one on one with God. I was even allowing serving God to distract me!

I recently went back and listened to a sermon that was part of a series that Pastor Chris did a few years back about The Problems with Prayer. In this particular sermon he talked about how in Mark 1, Jesus made it point to have silence and solitude with the Father. How the busyness of Jesus’ life drove him to the Father. I was choosing the opposite. I choose to figure this life out on my own and allow the busyness of my life to keep me from precious one on one time with my loving Father! Why do we do that?

I encourage you to choose true silence and solitude with the Father. It is ok to say no to a friend that wants to get a cup of coffee with you. Get up a little earlier if you need. It is ok to turn the phone of for a little bit. Be like Jesus and allow the chaos and busyness of life to drive you to the Lord, not shut Him out!