Spending Real Time

I have shared with anyone who will listen about how much I have loved doing the Bible Recap over the past few years. Bible Recap is a way of going through the Bible in chronological order. Each day, after reading the day’s scripture, you can listen to a helpful explanation of what you just read. I thought I would finish it one year and then do another Bible reading plan. And one year I might actually do that. But for now, I am still learning and growing in God’s word each time through. Recently I was reading Job 29-31. After reading the scripture, I listened to Tara-Leigh Cobble share her thoughts about the passages. In her “God shot”, which is where she shares where she saw God in the scripture, she speaks of how Job considers God his friend. She said this:

“Friendship implies not just knowledge of a person, but trust of a person. You can only trust someone you know, and you can only know someone you spend time with.”

This is why we can draw near to God through reading His word. That is one way to spend time with Him, to learn about who He is. We can go from reading ABOUT Him to reading it WITH Him!

I also began thinking this is a big part of the reason so many friendships seem fractured at this time. People are not able to spend time with many of their friends. They are missing the face to face trust and knowing the person well. Face to face has been replaced with words on a screen, many of them anxious, on edge, and even angry at times. We may not be able to spend the time with friends like we did a year ago even, but we can change the way we get to know God. And through that, we can have the compassion, grace, and mercy needed most right now in relationships. Friends don’t need to know we are right. Friends need to know we love and care about them.

The words of a song have played in my mind for days. There are quite a few versions, but it started as a hymn in the 60’s, inspired by John 13:35. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

These few lines are the ones I have thought and repeated the most. If we can have these playing in our hearts and minds all day, it may cause us to pause and have more patience with those that do not know God. It may cause us to look hopefully for what God can do through us and what we can do to glorify God through any circumstance.When our hearts are open to be used by God, He will!

God, I pray for all people hurting. I pray for healing of fractured relationships. I also pray that you will help us to show love to those around us. That others will eagerly seek to know you God because of the love they see demonstrated. Some days we get a little off track, we pray you will lead us back and remind us of how much you love us so we can share that with others. Amen.