One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4
We are now entering what I refer to as the second stage of settling in at the rectory. We've moved in, and put our furniture in roughly the rooms where we thought they'd fit and suit - and now that we've been here for almost ten weeks, we've started to realise that our initial thoughts might need to be revisited. In particular, we soon discovered that our snakes and lizards needed to be brought back out so that we could see them better, so we have had to rearrange our furniture to bring them out into the open. I assume that this isn't the only change we will make - who knows where half of our furniture will end up!
We all do this with all aspects of our lives. We start out with a routine that seems to work, but gradually make changes to find-tune it to make it work for ourselves as circumstances change. Sometimes the changes are gradual, but sometimes they can involve a system shock, like moving home or job, or coping with a sudden illness or death. We sometimes do it subconsciously, sometimes forcing ourselves to become accustomed to the change. Some changes are easy, others more difficult.
Sometimes we need to consider our spiritual lives, to check if our routine still works for us. We need to be sure that we haven't unconsciously changed our routine and lost our connection with God. We could make ourselves so busy that we've forgotten to read our Bible passages, or that we've gone a day or two without speaking to God in our prayers.
In our verse from Psalm 27 - David prays that he will continue to keep his connection with God - and this was something that he sought after. We should take our lead from David - and be constant in our prayers to ask God to keep us near him. We often take it for granted that we will always be in a relationship with God, and after the first excitement of our relationship - as we start the second stage of settling - we need to start looking carefully at our relationship to ensure that it continues to survive and thrive.
What do we ask of God? To we take assumptions, and sometimes take our relationship for granted? Do we need to make conscious changes our spiritual routine to make sure we remain connected?
We are now entering what I refer to as the second stage of settling in at the rectory. We've moved in, and put our furniture in roughly the rooms where we thought they'd fit and suit - and now that we've been here for almost ten weeks, we've started to realise that our initial thoughts might need to be revisited. In particular, we soon discovered that our snakes and lizards needed to be brought back out so that we could see them better, so we have had to rearrange our furniture to bring them out into the open. I assume that this isn't the only change we will make - who knows where half of our furniture will end up!
We all do this with all aspects of our lives. We start out with a routine that seems to work, but gradually make changes to find-tune it to make it work for ourselves as circumstances change. Sometimes the changes are gradual, but sometimes they can involve a system shock, like moving home or job, or coping with a sudden illness or death. We sometimes do it subconsciously, sometimes forcing ourselves to become accustomed to the change. Some changes are easy, others more difficult.
Sometimes we need to consider our spiritual lives, to check if our routine still works for us. We need to be sure that we haven't unconsciously changed our routine and lost our connection with God. We could make ourselves so busy that we've forgotten to read our Bible passages, or that we've gone a day or two without speaking to God in our prayers.
In our verse from Psalm 27 - David prays that he will continue to keep his connection with God - and this was something that he sought after. We should take our lead from David - and be constant in our prayers to ask God to keep us near him. We often take it for granted that we will always be in a relationship with God, and after the first excitement of our relationship - as we start the second stage of settling - we need to start looking carefully at our relationship to ensure that it continues to survive and thrive.
What do we ask of God? To we take assumptions, and sometimes take our relationship for granted? Do we need to make conscious changes our spiritual routine to make sure we remain connected?
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